


Operational Security

by Kahika



Series: Relay Monument Incident [9]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Apologies, Communication, Elevators, Established Relationship, Experimental Style, F/M, Family, First Dates, First Time Blow Jobs, Fluff and Smut, Friendship, Grief/Mourning, Meet the Family, Memorials, Morning Sex, Secret Relationship, Sisters, Trust, Xenophilia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-29
Updated: 2017-06-26
Packaged: 2018-05-17 10:07:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 42,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5865088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kahika/pseuds/Kahika
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's one thing to agree to a relationship. It's another to figure out how that relationship's going to work, especially with over two years of life without each other to catch up on.</p><p>Some secrets shouldn't be kept.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Like "Signal Corps", only one chapter of this is Explicit and the rest are T; all the smutty tags are for that chapter. Also like "Signal Corps", it's the second one (or the first if you differentiate from the prologue, which I don't really).
> 
> Like "White Flag", the chapters vary in length.
> 
> The Experimental Style tag's for only a couple of chapters which felt like they were different from the others and needed another style. There are a few more content tags in there for later chapters too.
> 
> Usually I hate posting WIPs because I know what it's like to have a fic die on you and I don't want to inflict that on anyone else, but all the chapters are half-written so I figure this one should be fine.
> 
> This picks up the morning after "White Flag" and is leading up to the Rannoch arc; it's slightly AU in that the quarians reach out to the Alliance a handful of missions after the coup instead of when leaving the Citadel (think the mission countdown from Horizon to the Collector Ship), mostly so the _Normandy_ 's not tooling around on side quests while Wilkarian would much rather be meeting up with one of their best friends and totally letting Shepard know this.
> 
> Without further ado...

Garrus wakes up cold and alone, and for a moment he panics a little, worried Ashley had second thoughts and left him for the crew quarters or something.

The moment passes. He sits up and checks the time on his omni-tool: The middle of the night. No wonder he was so tired. He takes a deep breath. "Ash?"

There's a confused groan from below him. Blinking, he looks down to find her lying on the floor, tangled in the blanket. His mandibles twitch, then he steps over her and scoops her and the blanket up in his arms. "I _told_ you not to roll," he says, shades of amusement and irrepressible fondness in his subharmonic.

"Can't help it," she mumbles.

"Is this a weird human thing, or a weird Ashley thing?"

She just grunts and rubs her nose against his shoulder. Smiling, he presses his mouth plates to her forehead, her culture's motion in his culture's position, before gently placing her back on the sofa. "I'll head back to the battery, let you get some sleep -"

"Don't go," she says immediately, the clearest thing she's said yet and the most _panicked_ he thinks he's ever heard her, and she reaches up and clings around his neck.

The last remaining worries he had about her waking up and leaving him melt away, replaced with only affection. "Okay," he says. "Okay. I'll stay with you. But we're sleeping on something wider."

Ashley relaxes, leaning her cheek against his chest. "Not the floor."

He chuckles softly, picking her up again, but this time grabbing his gadgets too. "No, not the floor. Go back to sleep."

"'kay."

She falls asleep with an ease he envies, staying that way even as he pauses at her locker, checks in with EDI that the deck's clear, and then carries her to the battery. She's softer in sleep, all her defenses down in a way they never are while awake, even when alone with him; she reaches for him when he lays her on his own cot and then moves away to put aside everything else he'd brought in.

"I'm right here," he murmurs, slipping into bed and into her arms. "I'll always be here if you need me."

 _Maybe we should take it slow,_ she'd said in the gangway. It's why he only dares to say the word _always_ now, when she probably won't hear or remember it, even though those big, fast words like 'always' and 'forever' infiltrated his heart a while ago.

Sleep comes slowly. In the space between imagination and dreams, he pictures her on a Palaven that isn't choked by dust and Reapers.

He wakes again better rested with Ashley still in his arms, though she's turned around in her sleep to face away from him. His mandibles splay, and for a long moment he simply lies there, convincing himself this is real: She loves him. She's his girlfriend. She's not leaving.

When it becomes clear that she's not leaving mostly because she's not waking up any time soon, he reaches over her for his omni-tool and visor and puts them on. It's still early on the _Normandy_ , but that can sometimes mean midday on Palaven and Menae, and Ridgefield and Lamont might have replied to his e-mails by now. Time to start on his inbox.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mornings are a time for cuddles, catchups, confessions, and...

The world is tinged in red when Ashley wakes up, except for orange light above her like she fell asleep with her omni-tool windows still open. Instead of a window of stars, there's a long walkway to a weapons bench before her, and she can hear a low, continuous hum.

"Huh?"

Garrus chuckles softly behind her, and the orange light fades. "Morning."

As he puts his arm back around her waist, she reaches for his hand and holds it. Part of her thinks she must still be dreaming if she's waking up with him. "Where...?"

"Main battery," he says. "You fell off the sofa and woke up, and when I offered to leave you alone to give you more space, you told me not to go. So I brought you here."

She turns to face him, and when he reaches up to stroke one gloved talon along her cheek, the look in his eyes nothing less than wonder, she finally allows herself to believe this is real. "Since when does a ship's main battery have a bed?"

"Since Cerberus hired a turian," he says, faintly bitter. "There were... murmurings, in crew quarters, when they thought I was asleep. And in the mess, when they thought I couldn't hear."

She frowns. "Not any more, right?"

"No, the Alliance crew's good to me," he says, letting his hand drop to her side. "But I got used to having a little privacy. Made up an excuse, bought a new cot myself so the Alliance couldn't complain, put the bed back in."

"It's coming in handy," she says, and kisses him, just a brush of her mouth against his. She'd been prepared, when Shepard had said she could return, to be within arm's reach of Garrus in crew quarters but unable to touch him. Actually being with him is lightyears better.

He purrs, the vibration settling in her bones. "Did you sleep okay?" he asks. "You barely stirred while I carried you here, but I know this isn't as soft as your -"

"I'm good," she cuts in, stretching out. Besides the part where she apparently woke herself up by falling out of bed, she hasn't slept so well since her last night on Earth. "What about you?"

He headbutts her. "I'm good."

"How long do we have?"

"I don't know about _you_ ," he says, bringing up his omni-tool. "But I've got an hour and a half before I'm supposed to be in the kitchen."

Which gives her two hours. She chuckles, and eases his visor from his head, dropping it beside the bed. "Still can't believe she put you on KP."

"Yeah," he says, unfastening his omni-tool. "She couldn't have just sentenced me to pushups or something?"

He's so top heavy that the mental image of him doing pushups is funnier than it is hot. "I'll keep that in mind if I ever want to punish you for something official."

"Mean," he complains, but given that all he does is put his omni-tool aside, she's not inclined to put any stock into it. If he objected so much to her being mean, he wouldn't be willing to spend his limited time before work completely focused on her like removing his omni-tool implies.

Still, she's curious about what he was looking at so early, so she waves a hand at it. "How's the inbox?"

"Mostly war business," he says, shrugging. "A little personal stuff."

She hesitates. "Can I ask?"

Mandibles flared in surprise, he gives her a fleeting headbutt. "Of _course_ you can," he says, as if it had never occurred to him that she couldn't. "I checked in on a couple of old C-Sec friends last night: One's in hospital with injuries, but expecting to be discharged in a couple of days. The other one just needed a little medi-gel. But she's been promoted to firearms trainer since I worked there, so that was neat."

She smiles, cupping his cheek in her hand. So he only lost one friend yesterday. "You must be so relieved," she says, and he nods his confirmation. "Can we send flowers to the one in hospital?"

"You said 'we'," he points out with interest.

It had felt so natural that she hadn't noticed. She nods before she can pick it apart or take it back, and he rewards it with a headbutt.

"'We' can send him rocks," he says. "He's turian, doesn't really get the flower thing either."

Intrigued, she pulls back to look at him. "Is that what I sent your mom?"

He nods. "Back in the day, the idea was that you'd use them to sharpen your claws, because you were going to battle pain or sickness," he says. "Nowadays everyone's about bundles of _pretty_ rocks, nicely arranged and tied together."

"Oh, _bundles_ ," she echoes, suddenly remembering what he'd called her bouquets.

"Yes...?"

"Something you said at my place just made sense to me," she says. "But I like that; it really means something." And then she realizes: "I have no idea why we give flowers."

"It seems silly," he says, far too mellow for actual scorn. "They die quickly. But I'm going with it."

She grins. "Sorry you're dating a silly human."

"The _silliest_ human," he agrees, nuzzling her. "She moves around in her sleep and falls out of bed."

" _One_ time. I -"

He kisses her, easy and comfortable, and she forgets what she was going to say. There's something new and wonderful about this. They've only woken up together once before, the morning she left for the Rapid Response Base, and that had been sadder, trying to savor what they'd thought would be the last time they'd be together, the last time either of them would have something or someone of the _Normandy_. Now, they have the rest of the war (because Ashley doesn't kid herself that they're both going to make it).

When he releases her, she ignores his talons in her hair and thinks back on what he'd said, trying to remember what she was going to say, and then realizes something.

"Wait, did you say one of your friends is a firearms trainer?" He nods. "I was thinking after yesterday: Sarah's trained in aikido, right - a martial art," she adds, at his blank look. "But Cerberus uses guns, and I don't want her getting anywhere _near_ a husk, so I want to get her trained and licensed for a pistol. But I'm not around to do it and besides, I have no idea what the Citadel's licensing requirements are."

"Good idea," he says, clearly thinking about it already. "I can definitely ask if Aina has time to train her as a favor to me."

"No, don't burn a favor on me; I'm willing to pay," she says. " _Thank you_."

"Well, you know me," he says, a pleased hum in his subharmonic. "Always looking out for the Williams women."

Even if it means risking his own life. She kisses him soundly, in the hopes that it will convey her gratitude. When she disengages, she stays close, tucking her head under his chin.

"I just want to protect her, even though I can't be there," she says. "I was supposed to keep the war away from her."

"I forget how different humans are from turians sometimes," he says, and she raises her head to stare at him. "I never thought of keeping the war away from Sol; she joined my task force after she and Dad sorted out Mom's effects. She needed a project."

She can't fathom willingly pulling one of her sisters into the war effort, let alone while they're grieving. Sarah volunteering at the hospital is close enough. "What did she do?"

"I think I told you she was an architect before Mom got really bad. So she checked important buildings - both militarily strategic ones and civilian resources like the hospitals - to see how they could be strengthened against attack," he says, showing his teeth in that glowing pride of his. "The ones we had the budget for held out pretty well."

Ashley nods, then realizes something. "I'm sorry for only asking this now - how is she? And your dad?"

He sobers quickly, his talons tightening on her hip. "They were on Palaven," he says, and she frowns, stroking his fringe. "I haven't heard from them since before I left."

She reaches down, and then remembers she took her omni-tool off for sleep. "Did you bring my omni-tool in here?" He shakes his head. "Text me their names later."

"Okay," he says. "Why?"

"I'm going to have every evacuation center, refugee aid organization, and spaceport call either of us if Solana or your dad's names come through, and I don't want to transliterate them wrong," she says, and Garrus stares at her for a second, and then headbutts her, cupping her cheek in his hand. "It's really not that big a deal; I've already on their speed dial for Mom, Abby, and Lynn."

She'll also ask for calls if any of their names come up on casualty lists, but Garrus is enough of a pessimist without her adding to it.

"No, it's a big deal," he says. " _Thank you_."

"Hey, if I can use my Spectre privilege to look out for my family, of course I'll do it."

Garrus pulls back and looks at her strangely.

"What?"

"You just called _my_ father and sister _your_ family."

Her eyes widen, because she _did_. First 'we' and now 'my family'. She's never taken the time to examine her protectiveness over these turians she's never met or so much as seen a photo of, only to notice that it's somewhat beyond how she feels about any of her friends' families, and then to try and bury that realization. Now that she's in a defined relationship with Garrus, it may be time to dig it back up.

"I... guess I'm getting really ahead of myself."

"I've been doing the same thing," he says, sounding relieved, and suddenly his diving into a suicide mission for her family makes sense. "Not that I have the pull to do what you will, but when I heard from James that your family got off Earth okay, you have no idea how relieved I was."

Maybe it's _not_ time to dig it up. It's too early to even bring up the idea of joining families, no matter how much they're clearly feeling like part of each other's families already. "Can we shelve what that means for now?" she asks quietly, and he hesitates, then nods.

"What do you want to do instead?"

Ashley shrugs, and looks at him. Without thinking about it, she finds herself running her fingertips down his scars, on the edge of his mouth plates, his mandibles, his neck. She didn't have time for a proper examination yesterday, and walking on his right side had made her curious. He simply watches her, eyes a little wary.

"You had cybernetics here last time," she says, her hand along his neck.

"I was starting to heal up by the time I went home after the Collector Base," he says. "Let me tell you, _those_ make for a weird homecoming when no one knows you were hurt. I got them taken out a bit before Mom died."

"I remember it drove you crazy when I touched your scars." Well, licked them.

"Not as much any more. More scar tissue now." He pauses. "I remember they drove _you_ crazy."

"I like them more now," she says honestly, and kisses where his jaw meets his neck. They're prettier now, which she's never going to tell him because that's even more messed up than his face, and the slight healing is reassuring, compared to him bearing the marks of almost dying a few days before they saw each other again.

His eyes soften with relief as he relaxes under her touch. "Good," he says. "They've been fading - I was worried you wouldn't like it."

She pauses, surprised. "You think I'm that superficial?"

"Not _superficial_ ," he says, his eyes widening. "Just - I know turians aren't exactly the peak of sex appeal for you, so - what if you only liked how I looked before -"

The headbutt she gives him is partially an excuse for the eye contact. "I hope you know how stupid you sound right now."

"I'd rather sound stupid about this than right," he says. "Chakwas offered me a minor surgery to insulate the cybernetics and speed up the healing, but I actually like them, even if they're not the sexiest by turian standards."

"Turian standards are stupid," she says. She could touch them all day.

"So are human standards."

Rather than argue about whose species' standards are less stupid, she kisses him lazily, her hand on his neck, and he lets out a contented hum as he kisses back. His talons stroke idly down to her hip and flank, then back up again, skimming the underside of her breast through the fabric before returning to her waist. Every movement turns to golden syrup in her veins, slow and thick and sweet.

Without breaking the kiss, Ashley pushes him onto his back and settles on top of him, a leg over either side of his narrow turian waist. She shrugs out of her hoodie, and Garrus takes the opportunity to remove his gloves and run his hands up her shoulders and arms, as if he's trying to touch every uncovered centimetre of skin he can.

When they pause to breathe, she rests her forehead against his, unable to stop smiling.

"I missed you," he says, cupping her cheek in his hand.

The way he's looking at her makes her feel beautiful, even though she's only wearing pajamas and bandages and she has a little bedhead going on. "I missed you too," she says. "I'm so glad you made it." Through a rocket to the face, through the Omega 4 relay and back, through the invasion of Palaven, back into her arms.

"Well, I figured that if human heaven's the same place as turian heaven, you'd eventually come up just to mock me for dying stupidly," he says, and she laughs despite herself.

"You believe in Heaven too?"

"Turians have the concept, but if you're asking if I _personally_ believe in it..." He shrugs. "Mom being dead makes me want to."

"I think she's up there," she says matter-of-factly. "As someone who _does_ believe in Heaven, I feel pretty qualified to say that."

His mandibles spread slightly. "Tell me which human religion's yours, later," he says. "I've been curious, and if you think Mom's in your heaven, I want to know her 'living' conditions."

She'd never spelt out how important her faith is to her, but he'd noticed enough to get curious. Bless former detectives. She drops a quick kiss onto his mouth. "Deal."

He chases his mouth after her for another kiss, but she dodges to nip at his mandible instead, then sucks on it until he's groaning and arching towards her. It doesn't take long, and _that_ makes her grin too, if only for a second before it also makes her shush him.

"The cannons cover any noise," he says, his talons almost nicking into her shirt at the waist. "I was yelling at a mixed martial arts match in here once and no one heard me."

"Okay," she relents, and runs her teeth along his opposite mandible before it occurs to her to ask, "Who were you yelling for?"

"Zarren the Varren," he says. "Fight Night at Earth's Pontiac Silverdome was incredible."

"I like Reyes," she says, sitting up. "We can't see each other any more."

She gasps as he flips them over so he's pinning her to the cot by the hips and hands, but she grins up at him.

"Then stop looking."

In those low tones of voice she can't help but obey, tipping her head back on the pillow and shutting her eyes as he grazes his fangs across her jaw. She loves when he does this, yet it's more intense somehow when she can't see it coming. His fingers tangle with hers, easily finding that old compromise between their mismatched numbers of fingers, and he bites the side of her neck just over the edge of gentle.

"Communal showers," she somehow remembers, though it's a little breathless.

He growls into her neck. "Dumb fragile skin."

"You know you love it," she says, squeezing his hands.

"I do," he says helplessly, letting go so he can skim his talons over her shoulders. "Every - uh - square centimetre."

"Just like I love every dumb, resilient, chafey plate," she shoots back.

Garrus hums, then headbutts her. "It's not like we haven't had fun _without_ bruises. That Presidium hotel."

She slides a hand down to settle between his legs; she's interested to note that his plates are still closed. "I can think of more ways to have fun."

Breathing hard, he reaches down and closes his talons around her wrist, and for a very brief moment she assumes she screwed up. "When you said we'd take it slow, how slow were you talking?"

"This is good," she says, relieved he's not precisely stopping her. "Sex is good."

"Sex is very good," he agrees, letting her wrist go.

"I was thinking more, let's not rush into big commitments. No sleeping over every night, no Power of Attorney, no marriage talk."

He pauses before saying, "Okay."

"Okay?" she repeats, because that's the second time this morning he's hesitated before agreeing to something about their relationship.

"It makes sense," he says.

This is too serious a conversation to have while trying to feel him up. She takes her hand off of him. "But...?"

"Sometimes I get tired of making this make sense," he says. "I think it's just - too much time on my own, too much time in shitty situations without any contact with you to make them better. Too much time wanting, and wondering, and waiting. Lots of time to imagine."

For a long moment, she just watches him, stunned that someone who's usually so pessimistic would allow himself to dream of the big relationship things with someone he's never been allowed a relationship with - _humbled_ that his dreams are about _her_. "You're all in here, aren't you," she says quietly, not bothering to make it a question.

He nods briskly, eyes locked on hers.

"It's not that I'm not," she says. "I'm _yours_ ; you're the only one in the _galaxy_ I'm interested in. But I want to take the time to get things right."

He leans down and headbutts her. "When you put it _that_ way, I can definitely get behind taking it slow."

"Are we okay?" She has to be sure.

"We're okay."

"Okay," she repeats, and she kisses him for just a moment before trailing her mouth down his mandibles and neck, sucking hard enough to unsettle his breathing but not enough to leave hickeys.

Garrus sits up enough to remove his sleep tunic, and while he's still off balance from putting it aside, she rolls them over, straddling him. He watches her with half-lidded eyes and splayed mandibles as she travels down his chest, raking her nails between his plates and pressing her lips and, when he doesn't expect it, teeth to each one.

"That's new," she says, running her fingers over a scar between two of his chest plates.

"Brute on Menae," he says, and brushes her hair back from her face. "Attacked camp during dinner, broke through my shields. You've got new scars too - they can't all be from Mars."

"When we've got time, we can give each other the tour," she says.

"And on your left, we have that time Garrus got in the middle of - oh, _hello_ ," he says instead, as she reaches his trousers and pulls them down.

"Hi," she says, and she mouths over his underwear, but instead of his cock, all she's feeling is a slight dip of two plates meeting. Curious, she tugs his briefs down and stares.

Garrus squints at her over his chest. "What?"

"Every other time I've bothered to look, you were already -" She pauses, considering, because for all she knows he might be hard already. "What do you call it?"

"Unsheathed," he says, which is oddly poetic. "Or out of my plates."

"You're covered in plates; that's very confusing."

"Everyone understands it without specifying pubic or guard plates," he says.

"My point stands," she says. "Anyway, this is new - to look at, anyway." She brings her face close to the gap, unable to resist: "Peekaboo."

Garrus starts laughing, an appalled edge to it. "You are _ridiculous_."

" _Turians_ are ridiculous!" she retorts, grinning. "Your bits are hard to find!"

"My 'bits'," he splutters, which, okay, that was incredibly mature of her, "are _protected_. I've seen more than a few human C-Sec officers get hit in the testicles and collapse."

"Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the extra challenge," she says, touching her thumb to the edge of one of his pubic plates. "Tell me if you don't like it."

"No, you're off to a good start. A little more -" She presses her thumb more firmly to it. " _Mm_ , that's good."

She considers, then runs her tongue up the seam, and the groan he gives is strangled by surprise.

"Ash, if you're planning what I think you are..."

"Me? Plan?" she echoes innocently. "I just want my boyfriend to have an _excellent_ start to his day."

"As good a start as the one when we cybered two years ago?"

"Better," she says, smiling up at him. "Because you don't have to imagine it."

His plates give a little under her hand, and he smooths her hair from her face, staring at her with a heady mix of hunger and affection. "No swallowing," he says firmly. "There's a cup on my weapons bench by the door. Meds and a water bottle under the bed."

She climbs over him to graze her teeth up his mandible before getting up to grab everything.

"Did you stop to grab these while carrying me in last night?" she asks, as she opens a levo pill packet.

"Maybe," he says.

She pops a pill and washes it down with the water. "Thought you were getting lucky this morning?"

"The most luck I thought I was getting this morning was waking up with you in my arms," he says, and she _has_ to lean up to headbutt him. He smiles. "I just wasn't sure when I'd get another chance to bring them in without anyone around. I'm surprised you're up for this so early, really."

"Have you had a blowjob since the last time I asked?"

"No," he says. "You're the only one I've slept with since."

Ashley feels a sting of guilt for her wedding reception hookup, and strips off her tee as much to keep it from her face as it is because she doesn't want any hard to explain stains on it. "Then it's not early: It's two years late."

Only Garrus would be able to keep his eyes off her breasts to look at her face. "Last time we had morning sex we cuddled first. I think we even had a nap."

"That was _too_ early," she says. She cups his scarred cheek in her hand. "I've been wanting to do this for you for so long."

For a moment, he looks lost for words, but then he recovers with, "Then don't let me keep you from it."

"You're so lucky you're hot," she says, and she dips down to run her teeth up the edge of one plate.

He whimpers. She smiles, because that's not something she's gotten out of him before, and does it again; she can feel his plates easing apart a little under her mouth.

" _That's_ better," she says, and now she has just enough room to dip her tongue into the gap and lick the insides of his plates. The opening widens.

"Spirits, Ash," he gets out. "No one _ever_ -"

"They really _should_ , if you enjoy it this much," she says.

"I don't want anyone else to," he murmurs.

She has a feeling her grin's a little sappier than intended. "I can't believe you're getting romantic over foreplay for a blowjob."

"The only person who's tried to give me a blowjob is the woman I'm in love with," he says. "I'm _allowed_ to get romantic about it."

"Get romantic later and let me do this."

Those other times she's gotten him unsheathed had been, with the one notable exception of that club restroom, in the midsts of heavier making out than just now. Maybe he needs more. She puts her multitasking skills to the test and reaches up to stroke the sensitive skin at his waist at the same time as she pushes down on one pubic plate with her other hand and licks beneath the opposite plate. She has to dodge when his guard plates finally slide apart to reveal a much more familiar view to her.

Ashley smiles. " _There_ you are."

"My eyes are up here," he protests half-heartedly, but his mandibles are splayed as he reaches down and strokes her hair.

She places her hands on his thighs, a warning to stay still, then drops a kiss onto the head of his cock. "Tell me if you don't like something."

"I trust you," he says, which is really just _sweet_. No one else has said that to her in bed -

\- but then, Garrus is the only person she's slept with who loves her. The others had liked and respected her well enough, sure, and she'd usually had a good time, but he cares more about her.

"I love you," she says, because they have so much time where they didn't say it to make up for.

Almost immediately he brightens; not that he wasn't happy while they were making out, but it's more radiant now. "I love you too."

After darting a smile up at him, she dips her head and licks a slow line up his cock, from as deep as she can get her face into his guard plates to the tip. Garrus whines something that doesn't translate, and her smile turns into a smirk. On the second pass, she pays more attention to his ridges, pressing her tongue to what feels so good inside her, and with a moan he tangles his talons into her hair.

She stops counting. She's too enthralled in mapping out all these new ways to draw out his bliss: Swirl her tongue around the head of his cock, get a whimper; graze her teeth along a guard plate while stroking her palm up him, get him bucking into her hand; retreat to nip at a plate on his leg, get an almost outraged " _Ash_!" By the time she finally wraps her lips around him, he's the most sensitive and reactive she's ever seen him, her badass Reaper Adviser reduced to a trembling heap, and that was just the experimental foreplay. It's too early in the morning to feel this powerful, this wanted. It goes straight to her core.

But this isn't about her pleasure, or at least not entirely. She eases more of him into his mouth, getting used to the width and textures and taste (she'd never known turians have precum too, handjobs for him have always been just foreplay, but it tastes surprisingly good) as much as she's letting him get used to it. Two years ago, guessing and fantasizing all those relays apart, she'd been right: The shape of his cock is not particularly conducive for deepthroating, at least from this angle. It might be easier closer to 69, but she wants to be able to concentrate for the first blowjob of his life, and she wouldn't put disregarding his own need for oxygen past him.

Still. She wouldn't trade this to go down on any human guy. Not with the way words aren't coming out of his mouth any more, the way it's all just incoherent moans almost like sobs with the occasional reverent "Ash". She hadn't lied to him about guys telling her she's good at this, and his hands on her shoulder and tangling into her hair say it without words. While she'd normally love when his talons start to bite into her skin, not only does she not want the bruises, but this time it's on her _head_.

Ashley lets him slip out of her mouth as she bats his hands away. "Put your gloves back on if you're going to hold on that tight."

She thinks he mutters something like "dumb fragile head" as he sits up to retrieve his gloves.

"You _like_ my head," she admonishes him. "That's where my hair is -"

"Not _all_ of your hair," he objects. "Just the nicest."

"And my brain and mouth are in here."

"Your _amazing_ mouth," he says, tugging her up to kiss her. He soon pulls away and puts two gloved talons to his mouth. "So _that's_ what that tastes like."

"It's a morning of firsts for everyone," she says dryly.

He headbutts her. " _Best_ morning."

"I'm not even done with you yet," she says, grinning.

"Oh, I know you're not," he says, his mandibles splayed. He grips her shoulders, and skims up to her head, the gloves blunting his claws. "Better?"

"Better."

His mouthplates brush the tip of her nose, making her giggle in surprise, but the soft look on his face stops her. "I _am_ sorry," he says. "I wasn't thinking."

"It's okay; I pride myself on destroying men's ability to think," she says, and as he splutters with laughter, she adds, "You'll just have to make it up to me later. Dumb sharp talons."

"I'll file them," he says. "I like having them sharp enough to deal with people like Balak, but for you -"

"You don't have to," she cuts in. "I love you as you are: A little bit dangerous." He grins that same uncontrollable smile he gets whenever she says those three words, and she adds firmly, "The gloves are fine."

She reaches into his guard plates to wrap one hand around him, and any further protests die in his throat. His eyes darken as he watches her bend down to him and figure out a rhythm of sucking, tugging, bobbing up and down that makes _him_ the one to break that eye contact when he has to shut his eyes against her onslaught and flop back down onto the bed. She keeps her other hand on his hip, a silent warning to stay still, and the tension in him says his obedience is a little desperate, but he does obey.

Right up until she swallows around him, and he groans and pitches into her throat, and Ashley pulls away coughing. Garrus sits up, alarmed.

"Sorry," they say at once, and then they both chuckle, embarrassed but at least not alone.

"I think breathplay's _your_ thing, not mine," she finishes.

"Spirits, I'm sorry," he repeats, his mandibles drawing together.

"Garrus," she says, lifting her hand to his cheek. "It's _okay_. It's your first time - I'm surprised it didn't happen _sooner_."

"I just don't want to hurt you in a not-fun way," he says. "Especially when you're making me feel this good."

It occurs to her that her still watering eyes are probably not reassuring. She closes them as she headbutts him. "I know. Thank you."

He kisses her, which somehow she didn't see coming, and though what he's doing with his tongue is positively filthy (ah, she taught him well), his hands are as gentle on her as when he'd been patching her up yesterday. It's a welcome break, and for a moment she allows herself to indulge in it, but then she pulls away with a wicked smile and dives back down.

She's pretty sure he's close. He's trying to keep eye contact this time, and he looks so _lost_ and disbelieving of the pleasure she's giving him. His grip in her hair's so tight it's painful, but in the fun (and, more importantly, less visible) way that gets her moaning with him. The extra vibration must be a shock to him, because his eyes widen and only moments later he blurts out, "Ash, I'm going to - don't you _dare_ swallow -"

She grips him tighter so he can't try to pull out, and keeps sucking until he's coming hot and surprisingly earthy and a little bit sweet in her mouth. It's not an unpleasant taste; she might even like it more than human cum, but with her surname she can't possibly say that out loud, not onboard an Alliance ship with a nosy AI. She takes as much as she can until she _has_ to reach for the mug, spitting her mouthful into it, and then for good measure she grabs the water bottle and rinses out her mouth.

Garrus is giving the ceiling a glazed look when she sprawls back over him and throws one leg around his waist and an arm over his chest, mostly avoiding the splatter of cum on his guard plates and upper thighs.

"So? How was that weird human sexual practice?"

He doesn't say anything, just touches her cheek in wonder.

"Wow," she says, grinning. "I've found two ways to shut you up in twelve hours."

"I thought you liked the sound of my voice," he says, giving her that adorable turian pout.

"I do," she says. "But I wondered if it was _possible_ for you to be quiet."

"So mean," he mumbles, far too content for an actual complaint, and he follows it up by nuzzling her cheek, his mandibles spreading again.

It's probably the best response she's ever gotten for a blowjob, and certainly the most affectionate. A lot of that can probably be chalked up to this being his first time, and more still can be attributed to how it's been under twenty-four hours since they confirmed their love for each other and their relationship. But it's not the only thing that has her smiling.

"Someone's pleased with herself," Garrus says eventually, amused.

"Yeah, but I was just thinking," she says.

"Credit for your thoughts?"

"This is the happiest sex we've ever had and it was just a blowjob," she says. "In the cargo bay, I was still upset about Kaidan. After Shepard's memorial and then before I left, _duh_. After Horizon, we were mad at each other, and then we were trying to make up for it."

He smiles with his mouth too now instead of just his mandibles. "And now, we're just... together."

"I like it," she decides. Happy sex is such a low bar that she's almost appalled that it took them so long.

"So do I," he says, stroking her hair. "After the coup was pretty close, but first thing in the morning's even better."

She looks up to meet his gaze, thoughtful. "Why'd you stop me, after the coup?"

He shrugs one shoulder. "I knew Shepard was going to call any minute, and I didn't want to rush, or end up taking her call in the middle of things again."

"She still called in the middle of making out," she says.

"But not in the middle of _sex_."

"And you still tried to ignore her," she points out.

"Got too caught up in it," he confesses. "I wanted to make the moment last."

Touched, she reaches up to caress his neck, and he watches her with a smile, before she leans out of the bed and flicks on his omni-tool.

"Well, I'm ending _this_ moment," she informs him, sitting up. "You've got KP."

"Not yet," he protests, tugging her back towards him. She'd forgotten how clingy and cuddly he is both in the afterglow and in the morning; combined, it's a miracle he let her check the time. "That was an incredible way to start my day - I want to return the favor."

"I'll take a raincheck on that." Garrus looks confused, and she clarifies: "Some other time."

"I can _smell_ that you're wet," he says, running a palm down her stomach apparently to confirm it for himself. "Are you sure you don't want me to -"

She tries to move his hand from where it settles over her sleep shorts, but he refuses to budge. "I _can_ take care of myself, you know."

"You shouldn't have to, when it comes to sex. Not any more."

Ashley folds her arms and puts just a touch of her Commander tone into her voice. "Officer Vakarian, you need to shower before you hit the mess. I'm not eating anything you made with cum still on your plates."

"Fine," he says, mandibles drawn slightly as he withdraws his hand. "Cockblocked by Shepard _again_."

She giggles, and shoves at him. "Go."

He sits up, reaching for his tunic, and halfway through pulling it down his chest, his eyes light up. "Shower with me."

"Shower with you in the _male_ communal showers," she says. "Stealthy."

"We should get you a Tactical Cloak."

"Because making out with nothing is just as subtle."

Garrus leans over and kisses her cheek. "Tonight, then. A locked door somewhere. Me catching up with..." He trails a talon across her breasts; given that he's usually not too interested in them, she decides to interpret this as either a promise of foreplay or him just grasping for anything he usually sees in a sexual context which isn't covered. "Other parts of you."

And, well, she's not about to say no to that. "Tonight."

He passes her shirt over, and once they're dressed, he takes her hand as they go to the door. That kind of innocent contact after she's just blown him is so sweet she has to smile.

"EDI, who's around in the mess?"

As EDI rattles off a few names, Ashley's heart sinks, and she turns to Garrus. "Damnit," she says. "I didn't realize I was going to do a walk of shame."

"Early morning sniper rifle consult," he says immediately. "I woke up and just _had_ to tell our only other sniper about all the cool new guns we've picked up since Mars, so I woke you up and asked you over."

"Uh-huh."

"Hey, I've laid groundwork for this: I've been alternately complaining that I'm lonely and gloating over being the best shot on the _Normandy_ for _weeks_."

She raises an eyebrow. "Have you really? We might just have to test that claim."

"Looking forward to it," he says with a grin. He pauses, and then says, "But seriously, I think you're gonna like this human version of a turian rifle we picked up on Sur'kesh. Really fast fire rate, reloads quickly too..."

Ashley's listening as he goes on about the Raptor, she really is, but what comes out of her mouth when Garrus pauses for breath is, "I missed you."

"You can say you love me now, it's okay," he says, a smirk in his voice.

"That too, but really, I missed you," she says. "I haven't worked with anyone the last few years as _nerdy_ about guns as you. Well, except for James, but you know how his eyes glaze over if you get any further out than assault rifles."

"I _did_ notice that," he says. "I didn't know that was something you liked about me - the only time you talked guns with me after you left was when I brought up the heat sinks."

"Because we weren't working together any more," she says. "If I'd told you what guns we were using, the Alliance went to war with the turians again, and you signed up and said, 'hey, I know exactly what guns the humans are using,' _I'm_ the one who gets in trouble for it."

"You and fraternization," he says, fondly exasperated.

Ashley wraps her arms around herself. "I'm sorry you fell for a military girl."

" _I'm_ not," he says firmly. "And I'm not sorry I fell for a human, or a Williams, either."

It's a conscious decision to let her arms drop, but the further relaxation when he headbutts her is pure instinct. In only a few years, that's her kneejerk response to non-violent headbutts now.

(She wonders what a few more years would do to her.

(And then she remembers that in all likelihood, they don't have a few years.)

"So," says Garrus. "Here's what we're going to do."

They leave the battery together, him firing off _different_ facts about the Raptor, her yawning exaggeratedly. Chakwas, Adams, and a younger man she thinks was introduced to her as the Yeoman glance up at them from their morning drinks and datapads as they head into the mess, and she holds her breath, but they soon go back to what they were doing.

" _That's_ what you dragged me out of bed for?" she demands, as scripted. It sounds incredibly fake to her. "You could have waited until a more sensible hour, Garrus."

"If I'd waited until later, I would have forgotten," he says. "And as the only other sniper onboard, you needed to know."

"I'd commend your enthusiasm on your next performance review if you were Alliance," she says. "Hit the showers, Officer. Shepard told me you're on KP for a week."

"Fine, _Commander_ ," he says, making the turn to the men's room. Only a moment later she receives a text from him: `I think that worked!`

She chuckles as she retreats to the ladies'. `Fine, you win.`

` Just like I'm going to win when we figure out who's the best shot on the Normandy. What are you going to do until breakfast? `

`Probably go back to bed.` After she finishes up in here.

` Okay. `

She's back in her room when a shirtless selfie hits her omni-tool.

Ashley grins, and lets her legs spread as she sits on one of the couches. If he's so determined to take care of her, he'd better make damn sure he doesn't get caught.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ash was going to argue that she totally stayed in bed in the Presidium hotel.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Selected audio logs from Ashley's first work day back on the _Normandy_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of the chapters the Experimental Style tag is for.

"Officer Vakarian."

"Commander Williams. Did you need something?"

"Just getting to know the crew, finding out everyone's duties and, where applicable, their combat abilities. Shepard gave me the personnel files but I like hearing it from the people themselves."

"Abilities, hm... Assault and sniper rifles still. Modding Armor Piercing Ammo. Fabricating Proximity Mines. Concussive Shots. Overloading shields, synthetics, and guns. Driving human women crazy... Well, one human woman."

"Careful, Officer. That's harrassment."

"Then so was your going down on me this morning, _Commander_."

"Shut up, Garrus, I'm trying to be serious here."

"You're no fun."

"You _know_ that's not true."

"I might need a reminder later. Anyway, what about you?"

"Huh?"

"Your combat abilities. I remember you wanted Infiltrator training."

"Oh! It... didn't work out. I got my Disruptor Ammo certification, but I couldn't wrap my head around coding."

"I'm sorry I didn't help you with that, I know I offered you books -"

"I'm not blaming you -"

"- we can work on it now if you want."

"It's _okay_. I just... I talked to this Engineer after Horizon, the one who trained me to fix the GARDIAN turrets. She said it's not for everyone; some people's brains just aren't made for programming."

"I still think you could do it, but okay."

"I did get certified for Inferno Grenades, and I can do Concussive Shots too now."

"They're fun, aren't they?"

"Yeah. Oh, and I specialized in assault and sniper rifles."

"What? You were using a pistol on Shalmar Plaza."

"First thing I grabbed. I told you, I didn't have time."

"You loved your boomsticks!"

"I still love them. But it turns out as you get promoted, they want you more specialized, and, uh. Remember how I broke my wrist? Twice?"

"How could I forget?"

"I had other stupid minor injuries too, and most of those times, I was using a shotgun. My CO and CMO wondered if I was getting in too close."

"That's varrenshit. You're better with a shotgun than I could ever be. Correlation isn't causation."

"Yeah, I know. But I got to like keeping things at a distance."

"Ash..."

"Anyway, what do you do around here when you're not on a mission?"

"Don't change the subject."

"Just take that one at face value, please."

"... Okay. I perform maintenance for the Javelin disruptor cannons and the Thanix cannons we added to the _Normandy_ last year. These'll be new to you - they're a turian-developed miniature of Sovereign's -"

"I'm getting overviews. You can tell me all about your new darlings some other time."

"I only have one darling."

"She's lucky."

"Who said it was a she?"

"Ha! Your duties, please, Officer."

"I also coordinate the drydocked turian ships for the construction of the Crucible."

"You didn't tell me that."

"It didn't really come up. It's kind of half logistical exercise, half strategizing."

"Big responsibility. Sounds like you'd be good at it."

"Mm, I try. Sometimes the Primarch of Palaven calls wanting my advice on something or other, which is even more nervewracking."

" _Damn_."

"Of course, my _favorite_ duty is warming the bed for the XO."

"That's not a Gunnery Officer duty."

"It's a new one."

"It's a boyfriend duty."

"Mm. Say 'boyfriend' again."

"What are you, fifteen?"

"Just happy."

"Crazy boyfriend."

"Indulgent girlfriend."

"I think I might check in again at lights out, Officer. Need to make sure a... turian-developed miniature is in full working order."

" _Miniature_?"

"Not the one behind your guard plates. I expect you on the floor giving me twenty tonight, Vakarian."

"I'll give you more than twenty, _ma'am_."

 

"Hey, Liara. Or... Shadow Broker? How are you supposed to address the Broker?"

"Just Liara is fine, Ashley."

"What exactly do you do in here?"

"I review reports from the Crucible and intercepted comms from various military and government channels, and see where I can redirect resources towards the war effort."

"Whose war effort? Thessia's?"

"Actually, I have more contact with the Alliance than I do the matriarchs."

"And you're serving on an Alliance ship. Just out of interest, would you say you've defected?"

"I... would say this is a multi-lateral mission, and as I'm not actually in the asari military, I'm technically acting only for myself."

"Sorry, I was just curious. Recent events got me thinking. Anyway, do you have anything on me?"

"... Ashley..."

"Shit. I was joking."

"Not any more. Your dossier was on one of the drives Feron and I left behind when Cerberus tried to capture the base, and I swear to you I removed the tracers on you when I took over the base. I only had the previous Broker's archives."

"Okay, what did _they_ have on me?"

"Credit chit transactions. Extranet search history... an e-mail chain."

"... to whom?"

"Garrus."

"Oh, _God_."

"He also had a video of the two of you meeting a Citadel politician."

" _No_..."

"The base is destroyed now. No one, and especially not Cerberus, will ever get their hands on that file."

"Thank God for small mercies."

"I didn't monitor you any further."

"That was how you knew to tell me that Garrus was back."

"I wasn't sure if you still had something. When I told you he was back, I only wanted to help. It had been so long since I'd seen either of you _happy_. He seemed fairly content, last year, but not the way he used to be stronger with you at his side, and you were so moody on Mars - Ashley, I'm sorry I looked at your dossier, but I'm not sorry for how I used what was in it."

"I'm - I should go."

 

"Did you know Liara used to have records of our e-mails?"

" _What_?"

"Not just our e-mails, either - remember when we ran into that politician?"

"... oh, spirits -"

"Yeah, she had a video."

"Shadow Broker?"

"Shadow Broker."

"I knew the last Broker had dossiers on some of the squad; I saw the terminal one time I visited the old base, but I didn't know she _kept_ those dossiers."

"I just... That was _ours_. I knew the Alliance had the logs, but when no one pulled me up on it, I figured no one was looking. But with a complete stranger who would have happily sold that information - sold _us_ -"

"Did you say 'used to'?"

"Yeah, she left it on the base when she blew it up."

"So there's that, at least."

"God. I was so scared of the Alliance finding out that I didn't even think of all the ways they could."

"Hey. Chin up. Look at me. ... There, that's better."

"... if you'd told me three years ago a headbutt would help calm me down, I'd have told you you were crazy."

"Gunnery Chief Williams wouldn't have been wrong."

"Heh."

"That particular way the Alliance could find out is over now, and the Shadow Broker's on our side. It's okay."

"... yeah. Okay."

"Are _you_ okay?"

"I think so. Crap, sorry I'm being stupid."

"I've never thought you were stupid, Ash."

"I love you."

"I love you too."

 

"So... Javik. Shepard told me about you. Said she found you in the same place she met me."

"It's _you_."

"Excuse me?"

"The human soldier the turian is joined with."

"... I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Machine, you are still not fulfilling your purpose."

" _Javik is implying that you and Garrus are in a relationship._ "

"I was not _implying_ -"

"Who told -"

"Your pheromones did. Guilt, leadership; he's all over you. Don't bother sniffing yourself. You won't know what to look for and nor, does it seem, does anyone else. We should have taught the asari of pheromones."

"... please don't tell anyone."

"Cross species mating is pointless, but it is no concern of mine, and no one will ask me."

"Thanks. I think."

"Do not betray him."

"Ex _cuse_ me?"

"Since the Primarch left, he is the only turian on a human ship, and you are his superior. You will use his secrets against him before he can do the same to you."

"You obviously don't know Garrus if you think he'd use my secrets against me."

"I know why we made other species subservient instead of cooperating with them."

"That's not how humanity works, and it's not how Garrus and I work. You've known him for, what, a month or so? I've known him - loved him - for years, and I trust him with so much more than my life. I would _never_ \- don't you touch me!"

"I don't need to touch you to know defensiveness when I see it."

"You know, I came in here to get to know you. To find out from you what you can do in the field. But if you're just going to make assumptions about my relationship, I can find out from someone else."

 

"EDI, send me any combat footage you have of Javik, and call Garrus."

" _Yes, Commander._ "

" _Hey -_ "

"Did you tell _Javik_ about us?"

" _What?_ "

"Garrus, he knows, and _I_ sure as hell didn't tell him."

" _He's known about us for a while. Said he could smell it, before you even came back._ "

"Before we were together...?"

" _I guess you changed my pheromones long ago._ "

"That's so weird. Does anyone else know that I don't know about? And did he tell anyone?"

" _I don't think Javik cares enough to tell anyone. But, uh, Jack, from last year, kind of figured things out back then, and we saw her before we went to Tuchanka - she upgraded you from my Alliance 'fuckbuddy' to 'girlfriend' in front of her kids. Her students, I mean. She was teaching at Grissom Academy until Cerberus attacked them._ "

"Jesus."

" _Don't worry, she didn't mention a name. And I'm pretty sure she only said it because she's not supposed to swear on the job._ "

"... you know that's never how I thought of you, right? I didn't know how to think of you but 'fuckbuddy' was never a contender."

" _I'd hoped. It's good to have the confirmation._ "

"Okay. Good."

" _You okay?_ "

"Getting there. I just feel - no, you know what, I still feel stupid. For freaking out about this not once, but _twice_ in one day."

" _I should have told you about Javik and Jack. I'm sorry._ "

"You should've. But I forgive you."

" _I would've told you about Liara if I'd known_ that's _what was in the dossiers - I didn't look at mine._ "

"Really? I'd want to know what they had on me."

" _I wasn't exactly in the best place to care about it last year, and I figured with Liara as the Broker, it'd be fine._ "

"Makes sense."

" _I'm pretty sure it's safe with her, Javik, and Jack, at least._ "

"Okay. I think I might tell James today. I know I can trust him, and I want to have more control over how people are finding out."

" _Okay. Let me know if you need me for anything._ "

"Will do."

 

"Hey, Lieutenant."

"We standing on ceremony now, Ash?"

"Hey, had to show you somehow that I'm here on business."

"Ma'am."

"I'm just going round everyone checking their abilities and duties - more interesting in person than from the files. So you're an N5, and you're all settled in as our arms master?"

"Yes, ma'am. Garrus dropped off your guns last night - got 'em cleaned up the way you used to like."

"Still like. Thanks."

"Just doing my job."

"You picked up anything new since the last time you visited in hospital?"

"Nah. No extra duties since I finally finished picking bits of that Cerberus shuttle out of ours, right, Esteban?"

"I trust the experience taught Mr. Vega not to go ramming our shuttle into _anything_!"

"We can only hope, Cortez."

"Oh, I taught Shepard that armor reinforcement trick you liked on Mars. I can show you some time if you want."

"That'd be great, James."

"Anything else?"

"... Actually, I've got a personal matter I need to discuss with you."

"Okay, shoot."

"In private."

"Time and place?"

"My quarters in ten."

"Aye-aye, ma'am."

 

"Ash, ¿qué pasa? You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm good. I'm great, actually."

"Then what's your personal thing that you couldn't say in front of Esteban?"

"It's... about Garrus. We're together now, since just before I came back onboard. Officially, anyway."

"Uh... Congrats."

"Thanks. But I'm telling you this because I need you to stop doing... whatever it is you think you're doing. Sticking up for me. Picking on him about me. Bla bla, unit cohesion, Commander jacket on."

"Hey, I've never done that on a mission -"

"But it's _awkward_. You're both my boys. I hate seeing you fight, especially over me."

"... I just wanna see you happy, Ash. I remember how our CO on Eden Prime treated you - how miserable you were on Ontarom when Garrus stopped writing."

"Staff Lieutenant Kilcher was an asshole and I've never been so proud to outrank someone as when I got my promotion to Lieutenant Commander. But me and Garrus - yeah, he made me miserable in the past, I won't deny that, but he also makes me happier than anyone else ever has. So you wanna see me happy? This is it."

"Okay. I'll back off. But I reserve the right to break his face if he breaks your heart again."

"... Thanks for looking out for me."

"Any time, Ash. We're 212; I know you've got my back too."

"You know me, always ready to punch out any table dancing tart you don't want throwing herself at you."

 

"Hey, Ash."

"Shepard. Joker and EDI told me the flight plan - what've we got?"

"Asari High Command sent us a distress signal to check out. Whatever it is, they've lost a lot of commandos investigating it."

"Three years later and it's still deadly for other people, fine for us."

"We _are_ Spectres."

"Yeah, I know. Still can't believe they let me keep my status after I shot a Councilor."

"Start believing. We should be there within the next couple of days. Do you want to be in the shore party?"

"Sure. Who's the third?"

"Liara. They sent it via her; she's seeing if she can dig anything else up about it."

"... okay. Oh, by the way - thanks for not telling everyone exactly what happened yesterday."

"'Ash and Garrus recited poetry at each other at gunpoint' barely makes sense _in_ context. I figured you didn't need that to be common knowledge."

"No, I really didn't."

"It's great having you back on the team, Ash."

"It's great to _be_ back."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> holy moly this brings the series to over 100k words


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It isn't only their crewmates they're keeping secrets from.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoops I got the wrong gun in chapter 2, which is odd because my Adept Shepard used a Viper and let Garrus and Ashley swap between Raptors and Black Widows (it's been edited)

In a weird way, she'd been looking forward to this assignment for the chance to work with Shepard again, but this time with her head out of her ass so she doesn't spend half of it accusing her of still working with Cerberus. Reality, of course, manages to drop her already low expectations for the actual work lower. She's tense from the moment Cortez drops them off at the monastery, and it only gets worse once they see what the Reapers have made of the Ardat-Yakshi. However, it's not the Banshees' screams that haunt her on their return to the _Normandy_.

Ashley's deep into an old e-mail chain with Sarah when her doors open. She sits up, minimizing the messages, but relaxes at the sight of Garrus tagging the lock.

"You didn't come see me when you got back," he says.

She didn't know she was _supposed_ to. One more thing in their relationship they have to figure out. "I needed a little me time," she says, and he hesitates by her couch. "But I can do Garrus time now."

"Garrus and Ash time," he corrects her, sitting down and immediately sliding an arm around her. In contrast to their inability to show affection in public, they touch very casually behind locked doors. She likes it. "But good. Ensign Copeland's naivete was starting to grate on me."

"He hasn't been at this as long as we have," she points out.

"Long enough to know you have to respect your enemies' capabilities, surely."

"If I'm getting in the way of Garrus and Copeland time, there's the door," she says dryly.

Surprised, he laughs, and kisses her cheek. "Garrus, Copeland, and Javik time, actually. But I'd much rather be here with you. Sorry."

She waves off the apology and rests her head on his shoulder, feeling his armor warm up under her cheek. It _is_ nice having him with her, after the monastery. She'll have to remember that next time she faces a Marauder.

"I noticed you took the Mantis," he says, not quite a question.

"Yeah, it's dependable," she says. "The Raptor sounds like fun, sure, but when we're investigating in the dark - literally, as it turned out - I don't want to be fumbling with an unfamiliar gun. I'll try it out when we get back to the Citadel. There's a really good shooting range in the Spectre Office."

"Really?" he says, eyes widening with interest. "Maybe I should reapply."

"I'll write you a reference," she teases, reaching for her omni-tool, and he chuckles.

"How was the assignment?" he asks. "For _you_ \- I read the reports."

"Combat-wise, it was mostly fine," she says, absently rubbing her shoulder. "But seeing a converted turian for the first time..."

Garrus strokes her hair. "Mm. All this time we've been fighting husks, I never thought about what it must be like for you, Shepard, and Kaidan. I'm not sure Jack or the others really knew what they were, or what they used to be."

"It was hardest on Eden Prime," she admits. "The first time I saw them, and it was people I'd been stationed there to protect. And that Marauder today..."

It hasn't been a week since she was on Shalmar Plaza, pointing a pistol at the man she loved. With another turian in her sights, she'd hesitated. Shepard had had to remind her they were waiting on her to make the ambush.

"I won't ever become one of them," he says, with a quiet, almost tangible intensity. "I'll die before that happens."

She shudders. "Too soon."

"Sorry," he says immediately, giving her a quick headbutt.

With a sigh, she pulls up her omni-tool screen and decides to admit, "The whole thing with Rila and Falere just hit a little too close to home. Made me want to reread some old letters from Sarah, back when she was in high school. Teen drama, she needed a big sis, and we were all away."

After a glance at the e-mail, Garrus looks at her sideways. "You know, if something on a mission gets to you, I'm here for you."

That honestly hadn't occurred to her before he walked in the door, and she feels stupid for it. "I know. But I've always hated asking anyone for help, and I think I got used to dealing with everything on my own." She hesitates before adding, "Especially after you left. After James transferred - he _never_ checks his e-mail. After I lost touch with Tali."

"You're not alone any more," he says firmly.

"I'm still getting used to that," she confesses.

He kisses her forehead, then taps at his own omni-tool. "Oh, speaking of Sarah, I heard back from Aina, my C-Sec firearms trainer friend. She's happy to help."

A forwarded e-mail from an Aina Lamont with a provisional training schedule pops up on her omni-tool, and Ashley stares at it for a moment before leaning up to headbutt him. "Thank you so much."

"Hey, after a suicide mission, this is _easy_ ," he says, his subharmonic lightly teasing, and she wonders how she's ever going to repay her debt to him. "I should get her to send progress photos. I kind of forget what Sarah looks like."

He went on a suicide mission for her family and he's only ever seen one of them. She swipes through her personal files and brings up a photo from the wedding, a candid photo of her, the girls, and Mom. Those photos usually bring back memories of Thomas, or of his best man, but it's the most recent source of family photos she has. "That's my mom. Marianela - Mrs. Williams to you until she says otherwise. She's kind of old fashioned about that. Abby's the one with a sling; she had a fencing accident the week before the wedding. Lynn's the other redhead. Sarah's in the long white dress; that's traditional for civilian brides in a lot of human cultures. And you know me."

Garrus stares at the photo like he's trying to memorize their features, until she taps it through to his omni-tool. "You know what I'm gonna say."

"What?"

"You look good in dress blues," he says, and she chuckles, because she _should have_ known. "Better with your hair down, of course, although I do have to admit, I don't feel as special now that you've stopped putting your hair up and I'm not the only one who sees it down."

"Shut up," she says, smiling, and then she activates his omni-tool. "It's your turn."

"I don't have anything recent," he says, flicking through his folders. "We're not often all together, and we're not really a photo family. But I might have... ah."

There are four people in his family photo, not three, and his face is intact and so _young_ looking.

"Five years ago," he says quietly, and then he points out each of his family members in turn. "Dad, with the Palaven blue, but he wasn't born in Cipritine like I was. Definitely Mr. Vakarian, not Castis. Mom - Lucine - doesn't have markings because she's from a spacer family and it's not really done, usually only if you're born on a planet or a well established space station like the Citadel." He pauses, and then says, " _Didn't_ have markings. _Was_ from a spacer family," before going on, breezing through even as she takes his hand and smooths her thumb over one of his talons in an attempt to be comforting. "Sol's got her visor on her right eye. She'd just gotten a job at some fancy firm; Dad and I came home to celebrate. This was just before Mom started... forgetting."

She squeezes his hand, then says lightly, "You told me ages ago that Solana was your twin, but _wow_."

Garrus huffs a laugh. "Yeah. We looked even more alike when we were little, before my crest grew in. After I got home from the Collectors, once Sol got over the shock of me taking a rocket to the face, she said, 'You couldn't have done this earlier when people couldn't tell us apart?'"

There's an appalled edge to her giggles. "That's terrible!"

His mandibles spread. "Yeah, but what are sisters for, right?"

Grinning, she starts scrolling back into her own older photos. "That's my dad," she says eventually. "Serviceman Third Class Joaquim Williams. The first time we saw each other in person after I was promoted to Gunnery Chief."

"He _does_ look like Sarah," he notes with interest. "But more importantly, he looks very proud of you."

"He was," she says, smiling. "He didn't expect I'd get that far any more than I did. Told me I deserved it, obviously, but he was dealing with the Alliance long before I was."

"If only he could see you now, Lieutenant Commander Williams."

"Oh, he's watching," she says matter-of-factly. "So be good."

Garrus immediately withdraws his hands and scoots away from her, and she laughs at the guilty look on his face as she follows him.

"Silly," she tells him, lying down with her head in his lap. Not the most comfortable pillow in the world, with him in armor, but worth it for the way his mandibles splay and he starts combing his talons through her hair. "I think he would have liked you, once he got past the turian thing."

He pauses, claws resting on her hair. "Would he have disapproved?"

"I don't know," she says honestly. "Probably. I never heard him _say_ anything against turians - we never had contact with any growing up - but he'd make faces sometimes, if we saw some on the vids. He'd pretend he didn't, if one of us caught him. He was probably resentful about how Shanxi affected his career." She pauses. "To be honest, until I met you, so was I."

Above her, his mandibles draw together, but he resumes playing with her hair. "It isn't fair what they did to you," he says. "You and your father should have been judged on your own merits, not your grandfather saving civilians."

She can't help but smile at his perspective on her grandfather's decision. After all these years of hearing it referred to as a mistake, it's nice hearing someone acknowledging it for what it was, especially someone from the military that had forced his hand. "I know," she says. "Tell that to the folks upstairs, not me."

"I thought you might want to hear it from someone else," he says, and, well, she has to sit up to kiss his cheek. "See this, Serviceman Williams? Your eldest daughter's the one corrupting _me_ with her alien mores."

Ashley bursts out laughing. "It goes both ways," she says, headbutting him.

He shushes her. "Ash, if your dad's watching from human heaven, I don't want him to think I'm a bad influence. I want to make a good impression."

"You should worry more about making a good impression on my _living_ family."

It occurs to her as a joke, but it comes out entirely serious, and he looks just as surprised by it as she feels. "Really?"

She'd imagined him at her sister's wedding, surrounded by her entire family, she realizes. Of course she'd wanted them to know. She loves her mom, her sisters. Garrus loves _her_ enough to go diving into the Omega-4 relay for them. And the most they know about him is whatever was on that news vid of the first _Normandy_ that had Sarah embarrassing her by pointing out Kaidan's cuteness.

"I want to tell them about you," she says, drawing back to look at him seriously. "Once they're settled and together. The people I love should know each other."

Garrus hesitates, brushing her hair behind her ear. "Is that a good idea? I mean, I'm sure they wouldn't tell the Alliance, and I do want to know them, but... I don't want you to have to choose between them or me."

"Abuela's dead," she says bluntly. "She's the only one I ever thought would actually disown me. Mom... wasn't thrilled with Lupe - my cousin - bringing her quarian boyfriend to Sarah's wedding and then catching the bouquet, but that _might_ have been because he couldn't eat the food everyone spent so long preparing."

"Ash, I can't eat your food either."

She rolls her shoulder back, frustrated. "I know. Damn. Now I know how Lynn felt bringing home her first girlfriend."

"Lynn likes girls?"

"Lynn likes everyone," she says absently. "I wish this was just simple. 'This is my boyfriend.'"

"You could try that," he says, and as she opens her mouth to object, he adds, "I'm kidding, Ash. They're your family. You know what might work better."

"I've got time, anyway," she says. "I want to tell them in person. The refugee transports are so packed it'll be a while before they get anywhere. It's just Sarah..."

She trails off, realizing: "Sarah might be easy mode. She had the least contact with abuela of all of us. And now she's volunteering at Huerta, and her mentor's an asari... Every time she's talked about learning alien anatomy or treating an alien, she's just fascinated, no judgment or anything."

"You could tell her first," he suggests. "And if it goes well, use her as backup when you tell everyone else."

"Now _that's_ a good idea," she says, and pauses, wondering. "What would _your_ family think?"

He's silent for a moment before saying, "I don't know. Dad's badmouthed humans a few times based on human C-Sec officers, but I don't think _relationships_ with humans ever occurred to anyone in my family. He'll probably disapprove more of you being a Spectre; I _know_ he hates them."

"I haven't even really done that much with it," she grumbles.

" _I_ know that," he says, a twitch in one of his mandibles giving away his amusement. "I dunno how Sol will take it. We've been hinting back and forth for the last few years that the other sibling seems lonely, so she might just be happy for me."

"Sarah was happy for me even having a boyfriend," she says. "And she wanted me to tell her about you. So maybe that'll help. I don't know. I'll think about it."

"I'll think too," says Garrus. "I've got the time. I know how limited comm time is down there, and I don't want to drop that kind of news on them while they're running for their lives. And besides, I want to tell them in person too. They deserve that much - _you_ deserve that much."

There he goes raising another good point she hadn't even thought about. Her family _does_ deserve to be told about him in person, not just in a vidmail. Vidmail is for urgent news or smaller things than _I'm in a loving relationship with a wonderful man who happens to be turian_.

Though she can't help her curiosity: "What would you tell them about me?"

"Well, I'd do the formal introduction because Dad's old fashioned," he says, much more readily than his theories of what they'd think of her. She has to wonder how many of these little things about being in a relationship he's considered before. "It's long and includes where you're from and your contributions to society, and because you're military, I'd have to list your medals. And then I'd tell them how dedicated you are to your mom and sisters. Tell them how you're supporting Sarah - they'd love that, considering _I've_ been disappointing in that area. I'd tell Dad how hard you've worked in the military even though they held you back, and that in one of your only Spectre ops so far, you worked with C-Sec. He'd get a kick out of that - might help smooth the Spectre thing over."

She chuckles. "Great, I'm worried about your species and you're just worried because I'm a Spectre. I knew I shouldn't have taken that offer."

"It's not too late to quit," he says cheerfully.

"Like _you_ haven't been dying to be a Spectre all these years," she says, grinning. "You love dating a Spectre."

"Only because I have extra assurance that I'll be contacted about my family," he admits. "Mostly, I love dating _you_. I want to tell them almost everything about you."

"'Almost'?"

"They don't need to know how you like to be bitten," he says with a gleam in his eye, and she laughs and shakes her head in agreement. "But I want them to get to know you. I just want to start them off on the right foot - make them want to know you because they like you, not just because you're with me and they need to make sure I'm not making another terrible mistake."

She smirks. "Do you make a lot of those?"

"According to them," he says wryly. "A lot of my conduct at C-Sec. Quitting instead of trying to make it work, not once, but twice. I think my mistake was working there in the first place."

Putting one hand to his cheek, she headbutts him. "If you hadn't been that reckless C-Sec agent chasing after a Spectre, we wouldn't have met."

His gaze goes sad at the thought. "Now _that_ would have been a terrible mistake."

"You giant sap," she murmurs, but she's smiling as he wraps his arms around her.

"Only when I'm in love."

If he's going to say things like that, she really can't help herself, can't help but press her mouth against his. With a tilt of his head, he catches her top lip between his mouth plates and deepens the kiss, tugging her into his lap. She's happy to move, to straddle his waist as she takes his face in her hands and indulges, the familiar sensation grounding her after the difficult mission.

So of course his omni-tool alarm starts beeping. With a regretful smile, she leans back. "Kitchen patrol?"

"Kitchen patrol," he confirms. "Time to see what's on the menu for tonight."

"I'll come with you," she says, getting to her feet. "I should e-mail Sarah that training schedule, and I need to finish reformatting my report on the monastery for the Council. Their report template's a little different from the Alliance's, more results focused."

"And here I thought you'd be free of paperwork once you became a Spectre," he says mournfully.

"I'm free of the _law_ ," she corrects him. "But the Council still wants to know what I'm up to. They don't want a human Saren - it'd be bad publicity."

"Remind me, Shepard, and Liara to tell you about the Spectre we met who was working for the Shadow Broker," he says. "As in, the one before Liara. They really pick some winners for Spectre status."

"Yeah, look at the humans," she says. "One of them killed a Councilor with her boyfriend."

"A _corrupt_ Councilor to save the others' lives," he corrects her. Standing, he offers her a hand up. "Let's go, Spectre Agent Williams."

She makes a face. "As long as you never call me that again. Not even the Councilors call me that; it's always Commander or Williams."

Garrus chuckles, and she takes his hand. "Whatever you say, Commander."


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She's kept this from him.

They're fumbling towards a routine together. They talk about non-work but impersonal things over meals, often cultural differences in something or other, usually in wider conversations with the rest of the crew (which is fantastic, because he's wanted to have both his friends and Ashley in his life for so long). They work on their own projects in the mornings, then in the afternoons, they spar and teach each other their military's moves, or they discuss different combinations of rifles and mods, or they compare turian and human progress in the war and try to strategize together, always somewhere public like the shuttle bay or the war room. At some point after dinner, during free time, he comes to her quarters or she comes to the battery and they take turns telling stories about their time apart. Sometimes someone (usually Ashley) sleeps over, and even when they sleep in their own rooms, they talk on the intercomms, sharing some poem or story. It's as domestic as one can get hiding a relationship on a warship, and he loves it, loves the way their walls are crumbling for each other, loves her more and more each day.

Ashley usually comes and hangs out in the mess while he's on kitchen duty, which means it's not nearly as much of a punishment as Shepard probably intended it to be. And sure, he's always paying more attention to Ensign Copeland or whoever's in charge of the kitchen that meal (cooking without being able to taste test is interesting), but he knows she's there; he can hear her voice if she has someone to talk to or he can catch sight of her if he's facing the right way.

"That's cute," she's saying as he comes to the table with his dinner one night. She eats slower these days than what he remembers from the first _Normandy_ ; he hasn't asked if she's waiting for him. "God, you've just made me realize, it's been a _while_ for me."

Garrus sits down next to James and across from her, the only seat left. "Since what?"

"Since I went on a date," she says, looking at him straight-faced. "Private Westmoreland was just telling me about the nice boy she had coffee with on the Citadel after the coup."

"Never mind my coffee date - really?" Westmoreland asks with interest. "Someone as cool as you, not getting a date?"

Ashley shrugs. "I always found it hard to meet guys who weren't in my unit," she explains. "I don't want to fraternize, you know?"

"Oh, I use this app called Enkindlr," Westmoreland says, bringing it up on her omni-tool. "You see the photos and profiles of people around you, and if you both like each other from that, you can talk. Super easy to turn people down without them knowing."

Garrus raises a brow plate as Ashley actually examines the app, and after a moment she looks up at him and grins.

"Thanks," she tells Westmoreland. "But I don't know. I'm not even sure I remember _how_ to date: The last time I was in a relationship was before I enlisted."

"Me too," says James, and he holds up his hand for a high-five.

"Ah-ah, Vega," she says. "That was longer ago for me than it was for you. I signed up straight out of high school, remember?"

"Wow, you guys are boring," says Westmoreland.

"Hey, what about you, Scars?" asks James, looking sideways at him. "When was the last time you had a date?"

"Three years ago," he says. Ashley gives him an _I'm not panicking_ look he recognizes from the field. "I used to go on the occasional date back when I was in C-Sec."

"Wait," says Westmoreland. "Am I the only one besides Commander Shepard and Liara who's had a love life since joining the _Normandy_?"

"I've got money on Joker and EDI," suggests James.

" _I heard that,_ " Joker objects over the comms, having finished his dinner before anyone else and subsequently headed back to the bridge.

As the conversation shifts to their pilot and AI, Garrus switches his biofeedback app on, watching Ashley calm down the further the conversation gets from her own love life. That, he thinks, is the end of it, but then the first thing she says to him once they're alone in the battery is, "Thanks."

"Hm?"

"For not saying your date was with me."

"Ash, I'm not stupid," he says, though it's a little fond. "There were only three people at that table who knew about us, and you'd just said you hadn't been in a relationship since high school. Plus, we kept saying that wasn't a date."

"It kind of was, wasn't it?"

"A little," he admits.

She takes his hand as they sit down on the bed, looking at him wistfully. "I wish we could go on a real first date."

The _but_ hangs between them as clearly as if she'd actually said it. He considers, then says, "We could have a date on the ship. Say we're doing important sniper business, lock ourselves in one of our rooms, have some fun with our clothes on." R &R is important, and they're both snipers. It's _a_ truth.

"I'd like that," she says, with a small smile. "We could turn the lights down, eat alone, watch a movie..."

"It's a date," he says, and she kisses his cheek. "Besides, if you haven't been on a date since high school, it's time you got back in the game."

Ashley looks thoughtful, but she nods. "My last date was with that guy in my prom photo. We dated for four months. Which was probably my longest relationship." She pauses, and then specifies, "Official relationship."

"I felt like we were in a relationship at _least_ since our e-mails," he admits.

"Me too," she says, folding her hands together. "So... you'll understand if I don't really know what I'm doing here."

Spirits. He's not only her first interspecies relationship, but her first adult relationship. It's incredibly humbling to realize that, to know she's giving it a try with him of all people.

He takes her hand and kisses her knuckles. "Thank you for telling me," he says, his throat suddenly dry.

"Well, I kind of told _everyone_ ," she says.

"But most of them don't know that you're in a relationship _now_ ," he says. "And you know, I wouldn't have guessed it. Your stumbling through seems to have gone pretty well so far."

"I've got a good teacher to stumble towards."

He chuckles. "A little casual dating in the two years between my service and joining the _Normandy_ doesn't mean I'm good at relationships." For one thing, he'd called or texted Solana for girl advice all the time.

"You're getting pretty good at ours," she says with a grin, and she kisses his cheek. "We're stumbling together."

"Mm," he intones, and tugs her close. Her smile softens as she returns his embrace. "I have to say, you're very good in bed for someone who hasn't had an adult relationship."

She stiffens in his arms. "You casually dated. I had casual sex on shore leave once in a while."

"I didn't say that was a bad thing," he says. "I hope you had fun."

Relaxing, she says, "I'm clean, if there's anything that can jump the species barrier."

"It's the amino acid barrier that nothing's jumped yet," he says, having looked this up. "But so am I."

"Good," she says. "Not that it changes anything."

"No, of course not."

"You know, doctors get really quiet when you tell them your birth control is interspecies sex," she says. He raises a brow plate, surprised that she'd mention it to medical staff when they can apparently give information to her CO, and she adds, "I said I was joking once the silence got awkward. Said I was celibate instead."

"I've never been asked that," he realizes. "But I'll try that answer if it ever happens."

Ashley smiles, but it fades quickly into something more worried and visibly trying not to be. "So, uh, speaking of casual hookups, I need to tell you something."

"I don't care how many guys you've slept with," he says.

"Thank you, but it's not that," she says, shaking her head. "Let me just get it out."

He nods, and then watches her as she falters for a moment.

"At Sarah's wedding reception..." A week before the war, he remembers. "I, um. I made out with the best man."

Garrus stiffens, torn between shoving her away and clinging to her so tightly no one else can ever touch her. Pushing her away wins out when she tentatively reaches for his cheek and he bats her away without thinking.

"You're mad," she says quietly, putting her hands in her lap.

As irrational as being mad would be, he can't deny it. It's occurred to him over the last couple of years that she might have found someone else, but he's tried to smooth it away with the thought that he doesn't want her not to live her life or to miss out on a happiness that's easier to handle because of him. After their conversation in the gangway, he'd thought it didn't matter.

He's never thought of himself as possessive. But then, he'd never thought he'd fall in love with a human.

"People have come onto me," he says. "And I said no, because we might not have known if we had something or had a name for it, but ever since our e-mails, no one else felt right."

"That's why I stopped it," she says. "Everything just made me miss you. You know, one of my aunts was bugging me about not having a date and asked what I was looking for in a guy, and everything I said, I'd already found in you."

"So you went looking for something more familiar instead," he says flatly.

"Because I was scared," she says, reaching for him again. This time he gets up off the bed, stalking down the walkway; she doesn't follow him. "Scared that I'd never see you again. Scared that even if I did, you wouldn't love me any more, because sure, you gave Hackett the title of that poem, but that was months before. Scared that because of that, I'd never be happy. Scared of how much I still loved you -"

"You're always scared," he shoots back, whipping around. "You weren't that first time, in the cargo bay, when it was just drunken stress relief, but ever since this started to mean something - since _I_ started to mean something... The only reason it took us over two years to get together is because you were always scared the wrong person would find out about us, and you're _still_ scared of that!"

"Right now all I'm scared of is losing you!"

He stares at her. Ashley gets to her feet, her eyes blazing - no, wet - as she strides up to him, backs him into his own weapons bench, and tiptoes to headbutt him.

"I'm yours," she says. He starts to shake his head, but she grabs him by the jaw and holds him against her. "I'm yours," she repeats, and she mixes it up with "I love you" and "I stopped it" and "I'm sorry" until the tension starts to leave him and, finally, he can bring himself to touch her without pushing her away, not so much holding her as resting his hands on her.

"That's the only other person I've let lay a hand on me since Shepard's memorial," she finishes.

And it was before their little discussion in the gangway, some more rational part of his brain realizes. "Before we were official."

"You said it, not me," she says.

So technically, he can't call it cheating. He sets his jaw, his hands skimming down her sides.

"Are we okay?"

"I haven't decided," he says. "I'm gonna need some time to think."

She lets her hands drop. "Okay."

"I'd like that time now," he says, and she nods and steps away from him.

"I'll be at breakfast if you... want to talk," she says, wiping her eyes.

He pretends he doesn't see it. "Okay."

Her posture changes, lifts into something a little more Commander Williams and a little less his Ash. She goes to the door and opens it, but she glances back at him before she leaves.

"I love you," she says, sidelit by the hallway where he can hear people in the mess, and then she's gone.

 

He doesn't see her when he eventually stalks out to the elevator and down to the cargo bay. As always, James proves easy to challenge to a sparring match, but Garrus's every move is a little too _much_ : Too wide, too far, too forceful for him to change direction easily when James dodges; he ends up on the floor a few times purely from his own mistakes.

The third time James manages to throw him (with an Alliance throw Garrus _knows_ , because Ashley's been teaching him), he studies him from above. "You're off your game, Scars."

Garrus bats his offered hand away. "Whatever."

"I'm serious," says James. "I'm not even _trying_ to kick your ass this time."

"I heard the XO told you not to," he retorts, getting to his feet. Spirits, it's amazing Ashley never slept with James, between his probable interest in her and her 'get drunk and get laid' tactic for dealing with misery.

" _Ash_ never told me that," James replies. He gets in close before adding in an undertone, "Trouble in paradise?"

It's only about the fourth hit he's managed to land on James. "None of your business."

"Okay, fine," says James. "But if it _is_ trouble in paradise, talk to someone about it who _isn't me_."

A couple of punches later, he realizes James is right. He can't talk to him about it: He's too close to Ashley and Garrus is already seeing him as part of the problem.

He walks away, ignoring James's protests that they're not finished, and runs through his options. Shepard's his best friend, yes, but there's a chance she'd take it out on Ashley, and just because he's hurting doesn't mean he wants Ashley to be hurt too. EDI no doubt overheard the whole thing, which would save him going over it, but her understanding of interpersonal relationships is iffy and this would be a terrible example to show an impressionable young AI. Joker, like Shepard, might take sides, and he's less sure of where his loyalties lie. Javik would insist on throwing Ashley out the airlock and then would say that he told him so. He's never breathed a word of their relationship to Steve nor the rest of the new crew and he's not about to start now.

(Not for the first time today, he misses his sister. Let Sol be alive.)

That leaves Liara. He hasn't explicitly told her they're together, and he's pretty sure Ashley hasn't either, but she reads his e-mails, he's willing to bet she's bugged most of the ship, and she did have their e-mails and video, so she knows more of the history than most of their old squadmates. Plus, he realizes halfway to her office, she's also in a cross-species relationship with more time apart than together, and for all he knows could have had similar issues with Shepard.

Glyph announces his presence as soon as he walks in the room, and though Liara turns towards him, he still says, "Liara. You busy?"

"Aren't we always?" she says with a smile, but she locks her screens. "I have time for you, Garrus."

"Just needed someone to talk to," he says, and as she starts pulling up a couple of chairs, he adds, "About Ash."

Liara frowns as they sit down. "What's going on?"

Garrus taps his talons on the chair, his mind choosing now to remind him he needs to get some real chairs for the battery. "You know she's my girlfriend, right?"

The surprise in her smile tells him that no, she didn't. "I'd wondered."

"Yeah, well." It's a good thing he's wearing gloves, otherwise he'd probably be cutting into the chair's cushions right now. "She made out with someone else a week before the Reapers invaded Earth and Palaven. Because she was _scared_."

"I'm not sure I follow."

"She'd just found out from Hackett that I was still alive and still in love with her, at least the last time that he saw me, and she realized she still loved me, but got scared she'd never see me again or whatever."

"Ah," Liara says softly, and she's silent for a moment before saying, "Don't tell Shepard I told you this."

"Okay," he says, curious now.

"Shepard made out with the yeoman last year," she says. "Kelly Chambers."

"She _didn't_ ," he says, aghast. Surely she would have told him.

"She told me herself," she says. "They had dinner together in her cabin, and at the end of the night..."

Her trailing off says it all. "When was this?"

"Some time after you met me on Illium, but before we went after the Shadow Broker," she says.

Ah. No wonder he didn't notice: That sounds like when he was wrapped up in his own head about Sidonis and Ashley and spent half his time distracting himself by looking after Grunt and the other half waving off many of Shepard's attempts at conversation by pretending to be busy with the Thanix. "Damn," he says softly.

"From the sounds of it, she was feeling similarly to Ashley," says Liara. "I'd given her the cold shoulder because I wanted to focus on taking the Shadow Broker down and rescuing Feron, and she was hurt and confused and looking for comfort."

Garrus leans forward, watching her. "How did you forgive that?"

"We're taught to forgive our partners," she says. "Unless you're with another asari or a krogan, they live such short lives, and we can't waste part of it on resentment and anger. And when your girlfriend's going after the Collectors, or the Reapers, you have even less time."

"That's _why_ ," he says. "Not _how_."

Liara nods, then says, "I thought about why she told me. It meant she didn't want any secrets between us, that she trusted me with that information. And I thought about why she did it in the first place, and I knew I didn't want her to ever feel that way again."

Of course, he realizes. Ashley wasn't ready to learn from someone else entirely, while they were out of contact, that he still loved her, and he shouldn't have put her in that position, should have tried harder to let her know he was alive and still very much in love with her.

"And I thought about the fact that she was still there in front of me," she says. "She wasn't off with Yeoman Chambers. She was with me, taking a risk by telling me, because it was _me_ she loved, me she wanted to marry and grow old and have children with -"

His mandibles flare wide - he hadn't known Liara and Shepard had talked at least obliquely about marriage and kids - but she ignores him and finishes up, "And I forgave her."

He sits back in his chair. It's a lot to think about. Not just the further erosion of the pedestal he's been slowly taking Shepard down from, but the clear parallels with Ashley and the ways he hadn't looked at this.

"Do you _want_ to forgive her?" she adds eventually.

"Yes," he says immediately. "Hell, I feel like I shouldn't even be mad, because we only just made it official when she came back to the _Normandy_ , and the last time I saw her before this guy, it's not like we agreed not to see other people or anything." _You're mine,_ she'd said, but it's only recently that she's started saying she's his. "But I'm still angry, and it still hurts."

"It feels like infidelity," Liara agrees.

"It's not just that," he realizes. "It was with a human, when my being turian has always been this big... _thing_ between us, because of her name."

"Would you have felt better if it was a turian?"

Garrus considers it, then shakes his head. "No. It would have been strange. I'm the only turian she's into - she doesn't even like turian porn actors."

"I didn't know that," she murmurs, and abruptly he's both proud to have surprised the Shadow Broker with information and mortified that it's about his girlfriend's porn preferences.

"Thanks for the talk," he says, a transparent attempt to change the subject. "Spirits, I remember when you were still an awkward little kid on the SR-1."

"We both lost a lover with the SR-1, Garrus. But I spent those two years trying to get mine back."

His mandibles draw hard. "That's not fair." He _tried_ to get back in touch with her.

"That wasn't supposed to be an attack," she says gently. "It was just when I grew up."

He nods, letting his face relax. "It's really nice working with you again," he says honestly. "I missed you."

"I missed you too," she says. "I like being back on the ship. The old base was more thorough, but... it was lonely."

On impulse, he gets up and hugs her, for what he suspects may be the first time. Liara freezes for a moment before hugging him back.

 

Despite himself, he's impressed by Ashley's restraint. She doesn't call him that night (resulting in the loneliest night he's had on the _Normandy_ since her return, even though he's still mad at her), she doesn't try to initiate conversation with him at meals the next day, and she doesn't come to him in the afternoon or evening shifts.

Which leaves it to him to come to her room near lights out, once most of his anger has simmered off (and he's beaten a punching bag instead of James and EDI's silently corrected his miscalculations in the Thanix's firing algorithms). Though she has two omni-tool windows in the air, she's blatantly looking out the window.

"I don't want to talk about it," she says without turning around. 

"Not even with me?" he asks, and the cautious hope on her face when she turns around hits him like a shotgun round. Her gaze follows him as he comes to her couch and sits next to her, but carefully avoids touching her. "Let me just... say something."

She switches off her omni-tool. "Of course."

"I'm scared too," he says. "Scared of the wrong person finding out, of ending your career. But mostly, scared of losing you. Never of how much I loved you. That was an 'oops', and until recently, an 'I can't tell her', but never something to be scared of. And for some reason, the only time I was scared I wouldn't see you again was when I thought I was going to die. I always just assumed I'd find a way back to you eventually."

She's starting to look away from him, so he puts two talons on her chin to stop her.

"I'm not saying that because I think I'm better or braver than you or anything," he adds. "I'm just saying that so you understand why _I_ don't understand your fear. Because here's the thing: I think you're braver than me. You're scared, but you're in this anyway. So, yeah, I'm mad that you made out with some other guy. I'm hurt that he was human, because part of being scared of losing you is being scared of losing you to a human - someone who's easier to be with in _every_ way."

Ashley raises a hand, and he nods. "That's why I'm scared of losing you to some turian woman."

"Mm." He headbutts her. "I think that's more important than something you did when you didn't know if I was alive or where I was. That we love each other."

"Okay," she says, reaching up to wrap her arms around his neck. " _Thank you_."

"If I promise to never again leave you wondering if I'm alive or how I feel about you -" His voice breaks a little. "Do you promise you won't do it again?"

"I promise," she says. "Even if you do leave me wondering. I'm all yours."

For the first time since she told him, he finally allows himself to hold her, and then he can't seem to _stop_ , his arms so tight around her that he can feel her wince, but she doesn't try to move nor say a word about it.

"Thank you for telling me," he murmurs. "For trusting me enough to tell me - for having honor."

Her brow furrows. "What the hell is honorable about this?"

"Cultural exchange," he realizes. "We're taught to own our actions, good or bad - the worst thing you could do is lie about them. You told the truth without even being asked."

"Huh," she says softly. She's quiet for a moment before asking, "Is hiding our relationship against your culture?"

This isn't even the first time this has occurred to him. "A little," he admits. "A lie of omission doesn't count as much. And I have different truths to use: You being my girlfriend doesn't mean you're not my friend, or my squadmate, or my XO. But if someone asked me directly, my first instinct's to own it."

"I am so sorry to ask that of you," she says, her eyes stricken as she pulls just her head back.

"I'm not sorry to be asked," he says. "Honor's like the carapace of turian culture - the backbone is putting society first. And you're hiding us because you want to fight for your people. So that's why my second instinct, and the one I go with, is to protect you."

He's seen more relief on her face in the last twenty-four hours than in the last three years. "Thank you for justifying it," she whispers. "If I'd known I was asking you to go against your morals..."

"You know, you're better at turian morals than I am sometimes," he says, and Ashley laughs and shakes her head. "And it's part of why I love you. Remember, I'm so proud and happy to be with you."

"Right back at you," she says. "You were never my dirty little secret. I just wanted to keep this safe."

"I know." Maybe he always knew. In the 800 blocks he'd been too hurt to acknowledge it.

She lays her cheek against his chest, and for a long moment they just hold each other and breathe together, reestablishing their relationship in physical space as well as in words.

"You know, I get it," she says eventually. "If you'd so much as kissed someone else - bitten some turian woman's mandibles - I would've wanted a day off too."

"I was yours; you said so in that motel," he says. "And we didn't say it then, but I thought you were mine."

"I wanted to be yours," she says. "That's why I'm glad we could put a name to it. Less ambiguous on whether we're exclusive."

"Just so we're clear: We're exclusive."

Ashley smiles. "Definitely."

 _Always,_ he wants to say, and doesn't. Instead, he lifts her chin and strokes her cheekbone with one talon. "My Ash," he murmurs against her lips.

"Your Ash," she echoes, but he swallows her nickname in a kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My friend who named Enkindlr when [I made silly edits of everyone's Tinder profiles](http://pohutukaryl.tumblr.com/tagged/enkindlr/chrono) does not wish to be named.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "What's the deal with Archangel? You put off telling me about it, that's fine, but now you're bragging about it to James."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, how's everyone been?

The tension between Garrus and James eased after she told James to back off, but ever since she told Garrus about the wedding reception, he's been a little prickly towards James, so when Ashley walks into the mess to hear an edge in his subharmonic as he tells James he's been with Shepard since the beginning, she can't help but think the two events are related. She takes a seat rather than break it up right away, and relaxes when James simply calls him old. The brag fest seems friendly enough.

When Shepard barges in, the boys finally notice Ashley too. Garrus favors her with that delicate mandibles-only smile he's been using more lately, and she grabs the Paragade she came in for as they insist to Shepard that they're just messing around. Eventually, they claim to defeat the Reapers together, which is far more reassuring than what they'd told Shepard.

As Garrus takes the seat next to hers, he looks at her thoughtfully and reaches for her hand under the table, linking one gloved talon with her pinkie. Risky move out here in the open. Not that she feels she can refuse any affection from him after hurting him. She squeezes his finger, but she's still thinking about how there was a name in there that rang a bell, and at a different tone than the last time she heard it.

"You know, I heard a bit about Archangel too," she says. "There were some mercs in the Terminus Systems who were pretty damn angry about him."

His hand stills. "Really?"

"Mm-hm," she says. "And I heard elsewhere that you had a team, so if your stuff with Shepard doesn't count..."

"Yeah, Archangel doesn't count any more," James says cheerfully.

Garrus doesn't look at her as he says, "Shall we discuss those rumors somewhere without someone keeping score?"

"Sure," she says, releasing his hand so she can get up.

He leads the way into the battery, and she tags the lock behind her, then stays there, leaning on the door and fidgeting with the cap of her Paragade bottle. Making up in her Spectre apartment made her realize she likes a little distance for these intensely personal confessions, instead of the way they tend to touch while catching up on smaller things. (Maybe his pushing her away after she told him about the wedding reception would have hurt less if she hadn't been close enough to try and touch him.)

"What's the deal with Archangel?" she asks, aiming for her mother's even mix of gentle and brisk. "You put off telling me about it, that's fine, but now you're bragging about it to James." James, whom she's not even sure Garrus _likes_ right now.

For a long moment, he's silent, staring at his weapons bench from the Thanix terminal. "It wasn't just my face destroyed by the way Archangel ended," he says eventually. "I'm trying to fix that before I end up second guessing myself on something important."

"Okay," she says. "Tell me about it, because I want to help you. We're in this together."

Something about his eyes looks younger as he turns to her, gradually more vulnerable in a way she realizes is deliberate: He's letting his guard down for her. "I don't know where to start."

Ashley takes a deep breath and releases it. "Then let me start with what _I_ know," she suggests, and he considers, then gives her a small nod. "You were on Omega. You were called Archangel. You led a multispecies team, without a doctor. The three merc gangs in the Terminus were having their shipments disrupted or leaders taken out, and half of them muttering about Archangel and/or some asshole turian. It ended with only two of you alive, and you with a rocket to the face, three days before we saw each other on Horizon." She pauses, and then says, "You wanted to make a difference. You were being held back on a drug smuggling case, but you found the smuggler and you quit your job, and you told me you might not write." She can do this detective stuff too.

"That's my girl," he says, giving her a thin smile. "Smart."

"You've been dropping clues," she says, putting the compliment aside because it's really not the time.

He nods. "The drug smuggler's a good place to start. He told me his supplier was on Omega. And customs obviously wasn't catching the shipments, so I decided to tackle the problem at the source."

"By going to Omega on your own." They'd both worried about Liara going there without backup, and while Garrus is obviously more experienced in combat, Omega's not exactly a place to fly solo.

"The Council - C-Sec, Spectres - don't have jurisdiction there," he says. "And there's only one rule on Omega, and tainted drug shipments to the Citadel don't break that." She raises an eyebrow, and he clarifies, "Don't fuck with Aria," then waves it off as unimportant. "So I got there, and... the problem was a lot bigger than I thought it was."

"No kidding," she says softly. "But where did 'Archangel' come from? I didn't think turians had the concept."

"No. We have angels, but ranking them is a human thing," he says. "It was right when I arrived: There was this elderly human couple trying to leave, and a batarian holding one hostage."

"You and your hostage situations," she says, smiling despite herself. That's the third she's heard of him being involved with.

"You're my favorite hostage," he says, his mandibles spreading.

She can't shake the smile, even as she shakes her head. "That _really_ shouldn't be as sweet as it is."

Garrus gives her a small, fragile smile, and then continues. "I killed the batarian, and the human woman told me, 'You're an angel, sir. A real life angel.' I'll never forget it."

"She got that part right," she says. He certainly looks out for people, especially her. "How did the team happen?"

"Two turians and a Blood Pack merc walk into a bar..."

He talks about saving a Lantar Sidonis from the Blood Pack, and while she likes to think dating a turian is helping her pick up the nuances of subharmonics, she can't begin to decipher the mess in his voice when he talks about him. He tells her about his salarian explosives expert, the batarian better at tech than he is ("he's one of the people I almost asked to hack the Alliance to find you" "a _batarian_?!" "that's exactly why I decided not to"), and the rest of his team. He mentions a weapons smuggler with her surname whom he'd tried to check wasn't a relative of hers ("nope, we don't have any Guses: my cousin Augusto goes by Aug"). He weaves a narrative of vigilante heroics, of a war on crime without civilian casualties, of a need for justice tangled with a desire to help people, of giving people hope.

"But it wasn't enough," he says, with shades of that moody Garrus in the drug store, and his hero's tale spirals into obsession with stamping out crime, regardless of how his squad felt. Even after the fact, that's enough of a warning sign for her. Orders are such a military thing that they don't seem right for motivating a volunteer vigilante team.

As Sidonis becomes the villain in his history, the reason if not the meaning for the complicated subharmonics when he discusses him become clear, and she can't keep her distance any more; she has to go to him, to try and comfort him with her closeness. He mentions what he'd thought would be his last e-mail to her and his last call to his father, then casts Shepard as his knight in N7 armor. (Ashley finishes her Paragade before she realizes it, and fetches him a water bottle from his weapons bench before he asks for it: They've always been able to switch right back into that squadmate ability to read each other on and off the field, and it's not only emotional pain straining his voice.) When he talks about the gunship, she stops him to soothe her fingers and mouth over his scars, even if he can't feel it as much as any more.

"I'm just really glad you made it," she explains, resting her forehead against his. "All that time I thought you were dead - I don't know what I would have done if I found out it was true."

"I'm sorry I put you through that," he says yet again, setting the water bottle on the floor. "But... how are you taking all this? You weren't exactly approving of my... less than legal tactics in C-Sec."

"In C-Sec you were supposed to be upholding the law, not breaking it," she says. "On Omega there wasn't a law to break, and you were trying to help people."

"I was grieving, too," he says. "I didn't realize it until Shepard was back, but... You tried for Infiltrator training; I tried to recreate the _Normandy_."

She leans into him, stroking one mandible. "Garrus, I want to know how you got to be the person you are today, but I'm not going to police who you were yesterday. Not when I could be learning to love who you are now."

For a moment Garrus simply stares at her, and then he throws his arms around her, burying his face in her hair. She's too surprised to return his embrace at first, but when she does it's with one arm tucked into his carapace.

"When I was out there, I wanted to make you proud," he says eventually. "And then you got all, ' _Garrus_ ,' on me when Jordan mentioned my old tactics and - I've been worried."

She kisses his forehead. "Sorry I'm a judgmental cow," she says. "It's okay. Really. And it sounds like you helped a lot of people - how could I not love that?"

Briefly, his mandibles splay. "I'm glad it's okay with you," he says. "Because it's still not entirely okay with me."

Not being Archangel; the aching pride in his voice as he talked about the hope they'd given people was too much for that. There's something else. She considers, and comes up with a loose end from his story. "What happened to Sidonis?"

His voice hardens. "He slipped away."

Quietly, he tells a story of a revenge mission, and by the time he gets to Shepard talking him down from pulling the trigger, she doesn't need the confirmation that this mission was what had brought him to the Citadel after Horizon, that Shepard stepping into his sights brought him into that fateful club in the 800 blocks.

"I really didn't make your day any better, did I," she murmurs. He'd tried to go after the person who got his team killed and she'd come at him hurt and furious.

Mandibles flicking out, he shakes his head. "Every day with you in it's better than without," he says, as if it should have been obvious. "Jack and Joker teased me about the bruises for a week, and we picked up Tali the next day so she mocked me too, but it was good to work things out with you at least a little before we went through the Omega-4 relay."

"I'm glad I could help, then," she says. She pauses before adding more gently, "What Sidonis did - that's not your fault."

"Yes, it is," he says. "I knew he and some of the others were unhappy and instead of talking to them about it and trying to find a compromise, I just pushed them harder."

She kisses the scarred side of his jaw. "Most people are unhappy at their jobs at some point, but not everyone gets all their coworkers shot because of it."

"Ash, I _put him on the squad_."

There's so much self loathing in his tone that she pulls back to study him. "Are you this disappointed in yourself for a lapse of judgment of character, or is there something else going on here?"

He blinks, and then smacks himself in the forehead. "I mentioned this Shepard after we met that turian platoon on Tuchanka. I never told you."

"Told me what?"

"This _is_ my fault, Ash," he says. "Turian society doesn't approve of promoting people without merit - of putting people into positions they're not ready for - and Sidonis clearly shouldn't have been on the squad."

Everything from his guilt to his unwavering belief that she should be promoted to his repeated insistence that what she considered her failures aren't her fault to his saying he'd put her in the position to cheat suddenly makes sense. She pulls him closer, holding him tightly to her and touching him everywhere she can reach, and for several long moments he just shakes in her arms. Once again, she wonders if he's let himself grieve. Probably not, if he went straight from Omega to the _Normandy_ to Palaven (where his mother died) and back to the _Normandy_ again.

"I don't believe it," she murmurs. "That's on _his_ head, not yours. Think a little more human for me, just this once."

He chuckles, but there's something slightly off about it. "Do you even know how turian _you_ think? Always putting the Alliance first."

Ashley makes a face. She's never thought of it as a particularly ethnic or species cultural trait, just that of military culture.

"Yeah, you've said before, but this is not about me," she says. "You wanna think turian about this? Okay, how many people on Omega are still standing because of your team?"

His mandibles draw against her neck. "I haven't been back there since -"

"It was worth it," she says. "You're still alive: Your war on the gangs was worth it."

Pulling back, for a while he simply watches her, and then he says, his voice small, "I failed with Sidonis. What if I fail with everything Victus keeps calling me about - with the Crucible?"

There. That's what else the rocket destroyed, that's what he's trying to recover by waving the positive side of Archangel at someone who knows nothing about it. This, she understands more - of course she understands; she's been battling this since Eden Prime.

(Since Virmire. Since Horizon. Since the coup.)

"I've failed too. I've failed and lost more people than you have and don't you tell me that it wasn't my fault, Garrus," she adds, because he's looking like he wants to say something. "Because that's not the point right now, and neither is numbers. When I fail, yeah, I probably do something stupid like yell at Anderson or kiss a turian, but later on I think about _how_ I failed so I can do better next time."

Garrus looks briefly confused, then blurts out, "Infiltrator training."

She nods. "And after Horizon, I started asking for earlier deployments. Didn't always get them, but I'd like to think they helped. And since the coup..."

"You didn't -"

"Yes, I did," she says. "I'm trying to get to know the squad better, so I know how people fight and get along before we actually have to do it. I'm keeping in mind that unless I'm told otherwise, Shepard's in charge." She cups his cheek in her hand. "I'm learning how to trust you again."

He takes a deep breath, and lets it out. "Thank you," he murmurs, and headbutts her.

"Hey, you give _me_ good pep talks. The least I can do is try. And even if I don't always have the words..." She wraps her arms around him, tucking her head under his chin. "I'm here."

"Which is just as helpful," he says, muffled in her hair. "I kept trying to contact you; I wanted you there with me - I wondered, at the end, if you would have kept my head on straight, if you would have noticed what I didn't."

"I don't know about that," she says. Grieving and probably in a relationship with him, she could have easily gotten just as swept up in trying to fight crime. "Besides, can you really see me as a vigilante?"

For a moment, he's silent, and then he chuckles. "No. But now you're a Spectre, anyway."

"You're never gonna let me live that down, are you?"

"I'm too proud of you to let it go," he says, and suddenly her heart is full.

"I'm proud of _you_ ," she says. "Bringing a squad together, getting those really different people to work together, helping all those civilians and making a terrible place better for the people who lived there."

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you about it until now. I've been trying to figure out how to. Especially because up until, well, you and what's his name -" He draws back, and adds, "I don't want to know his name. I'd rather irrationally hate some nameless, faceless guy."

"Okay," she says quietly.

"Up until that, most of our catchups were things we were happy or at least neutral about and finished with, not... something to be ashamed of."

Not for the first time, she realizes, "We're still learning to trust each other. We've seen each other miserable; we should know by now that we've got each other's backs."

"I agree," he says. "I trust you in the field, in bed, but I didn't know how to trust you with this."

Like how she didn't know how to trust him with what she'd done at the wedding reception, she thinks, and then immediately dismisses it. Something that hurt him isn't the same as something that had very little to do with her.

"So maybe what we need more than trust is faith," she says.

"A little late for that," he says, and she shrinks back against the door. "... I'm sorry, I didn't mean that."

"You did," she says, her voice small, but she moves on. "I meant we need belief, not evidence."

Garrus pauses, and says tentatively, "Like religion?"

"Kind of," she concedes. Damn, 'evidence' was a poor word choice with a former detective. "More like how you always thought we'd find a way back to each other."

He considers it, then nods. "So we need to believe in each other. I can do that."

"So will I," she says, nodding back. "Thank you - and thank you for finally telling me about Archangel. It just makes me love you more, not less."

Pulling her against his side, Garrus leans his chin on top of her head. "Glad it's... what's the human saying? Off my torso?"

"Chest," she corrects him. "English saying."

"Have I been surrounded by English speakers this entire time?"

"Maybe," she says, making a face. "It's kind of a de facto official language in the Alliance. Makes it hard to hang onto any other language when there's barely anyone around to speak it with."

"Doesn't seem to stop Vega."

Aha, there's an opportunity. "Speaking of James," she says. "There's something besides Archangel I've been wanting to know about."

"Hm?"

"What's with you two lately? Did he say something to you?"

Garrus draws his mandibles together. "No, he hasn't done anything," he says. "It's stupid."

"It's stupid and it's with my best friend and our squadmate," she says.

"Okay," he says, his subharmonic reluctant where his main track is carefully neutral. "Part of it's just me blowing off steam, because I haven't been in the field for a while. But mostly, I think I've been feeling territorial since... you told me."

Ah. Her stomach sinking, she pulls away from him. "Garrus -"

"I know you're not going to cheat," he cuts in. "I trust you for _that_. But when I see him, I think of the time he got with you back on that Rapid Response Base and Eden Prime, and - I'm _envious_."

"James did not get time with me on the SR-1," she says firmly. "He didn't get the escape pods, or the trip back to the Citadel, or those elevators, that hotel, that restaurant. More happened between us in those handful of days than between me and James in our months on Eden Prime and Ontarom."

"I know, but -"

"You can't trust me by _dis_ trusting James."

Garrus opens his mouth, then shuts it again. He's silent for a long moment before repeating, "I know."

She sighs. "I can't believe I need to give you the same 'leave him alone' talk I gave him."

"You don't," he says. "I'm sorry -"

"I'm not the one you should be apologizing to," she says.

"No, you're not," he agrees. "I'm sorry for making you feel like you need to give me that talk."

Briefly, lightly, she headbutts him. He doesn't deserve a longer one right now, but he gets points for effort. "Is this going to work?" she asks, her voice small. _Did I ruin it?_ she wants to ask, but doesn't.

"We'll make it work," he says, taking her hands. "I'll apologize to Vega, I'll watch my words around him - I'll back off."

"Good," she says with a nod. "And you'll come to _me_ with the hard stuff before trying to brag about it to someone else, so we can face it together. We're a team."

He headbutts her. "I love you. In case that wasn't obvious."

"I love you too," she says. "It was kind of obvious, but I like hearing it."

"I'll tell you more later," he says, his subharmonic laced with a promise. "EDI, where's Vega right now?"

" _Lieutenant Vega is in the shuttle bay._ "

"I'll go talk to him," he tells her, and as she nods and picks up the empty bottles, he adds, "And _you'll_ stop putting your empty bottles on the Thanix terminal."

"The key word is 'empty'," she says, unconcerned. "You want a top up on your water?"

"Yes, please." He pauses by the door, then pulls her into his embrace instead of heading back out to the mess. "You're good to me."

She leans up to headbutt him, knowing it's about more than refilling a water bottle. "Yeah, but I'm not a real life angel."

Garrus gives a slightly uncomfortable chuckle. "Angel's fine, mostly, but please don't call me Archangel. Not until I can call myself that again without having to steel myself."

They've never really done pet names, but suddenly she wants to: With everyone calling him Garrus and most of her friends calling her Ash, they don't have anything that's theirs, something that says how much they mean to each other without saying 'I love you'. "I'll come up with something else," she decides. "Something that's new, and ours."

His smile is more genuine as he opens the door. "Looking forward to it."


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Video files on Ashley's omni-tool, all selfies in her room, mostly her in battle dress uniform.
> 
> Words have power.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This starts after the conversation about telling their families.
> 
> Experimental Style again!

> **one**

"So you wanted to know about my boyfriend.

"It's so weird doing this from scratch. The handful of people who know we're together know him already and kind of saw it coming, whereas you... I've probably mentioned him before, but never like I was interested in him, because I wasn't at first. And then I just never thought it would happen.

"See, the thing is, he's... a squadmate. So, yeah, this is fraternization, and if someone who cares more about the regs finds out, we could both be in huge trouble. Me more than him, because... because of our surname. You know what it's been like in the Alliance for me and Dad. But we've loved each other for so long, and now it's the end of the world, so we're finally going for it. I'm just lucky Shepard doesn't care. God knows she puts _her_ girlfriend in shore parties all the time.

"... I don't even know where to start. I think I'll go brainstorm, and edit bits together later. Sorry, Sar: This is going to get jumpy."

> **two**

"He's ex-military, did his minimum service time, but when we met he was a C-Sec detective. That's how he got caught up in all this: He was investigating Saren like we were. It definitely wasn't love at first sight. We barely even talked to each other until later, and it took even longer before we got off the subject of work. It was... love by accident, I think.

"Because at first sight, I didn't even want to let him onto the _Normandy_. C-Sec detective arguing with the Executor was a great first impression, and opening fire in a hostage situation was an even better second impression. I tried not to talk to him when he joined the squad, but Shepard started to mix up the shore parties and, well, he's a damn good shot and a pretty amazing tactician. Couldn't help but respect him after that. We ended up working together so well we barely needed to say anything at all.

"The first time we really talked was after Virmire, that mission I told you about where... Shepard chose me. It was when the _Normandy_ was locked down on the Citadel. We talked about _everything_ , and we just clicked. Learned a lot about - his culture that night. I don't know how much he learned about ours, though.

"He's saved my life so many times. He always has my back, on the field and off, even when I haven't talked to him in ages. And he's always so supportive. Always told me I deserved more than the Alliance was giving me, even when I didn't believe it. He was applying for Spectre and told me I should apply too, and I think he was partially just saying that to cheer me up, to show me someone believed in me, but now I'm the Spectre and he's not. I don't know how he doesn't resent me for it. Every time he brings it up, he tells me again how proud of me he is.

"I don't know what I did to deserve him."

> **three**

"He's not the kind of guy I ever would have thought of as hot. You've been pointing out the cuties on my squads all these years and I don't think you would have picked him in a million years. But as we got to know each other - started to fall for each other - I started to like more and more about him, and now he's the most handsome man I know. It's hard to keep my eyes off of him when he walks into a room.

"I guess he does fit my type in that he's tall. But he's _too_ tall, to be honest. Kind of skinny, I think he's always wearing his armor to compensate, but he's still strong: He'd usually beat me sparring on the first _Normandy_ , and when he picks me up, he's not putting any effort into it. And he's very pointy; that's a little annoying, but he's so warm. Oh, he has strong hands; that fits my type too. I've seen him centimetres from tearing someone's throat out, but with me he can be so gentle.

"Not that he _looks_ gentle. He has these scars down the right side of his face from when he took a gunship missile to the face and almost died. I saw them the week he was shot - on one hand he looked awful, but on the other hand, they were pretty sexy. They're much more healed now, and he's kind of grown into them; he looks more comfortable with them.

"I love his eyes. You know how blue the sky could get on Amaterasu in springtime, about mid-morning? That's what they look like when he's really happy. And somehow I got lucky, because that's what they usually look like when he looks at me.

"You asked me why I didn't bring him to your wedding. And it was complicated back then, but God, I wish I had, because he looks so good in a suit. His armor's really bulky but he wears the most form fitting suits and suddenly he looks way more suave than he really is.

"Because he's actually a massive nerd. It's about guns and tactics, mainly, but _wow_. Some of our first conversations that weren't 'pass the salt' or 'guy on your left' were arguing over who got the new toys if we found an interesting rifle. I had to do a walk of shame from his room and his cover story was that he woke me up early to talk about sniper rifles, and it _worked_.

"He loves music. He drove me home after the coup and messed around for a while trying to find a radio station he liked. I thought he just didn't like driving in silence, but he says he plays music on his earpiece on _missions_ too. During _firefights_. Say it makes headshots more satisfying when he's shooting on the beat or when the bass drops.

"He's funny. I wasn't expecting that; a lot of his people have sticks up their asses. A really dry sense of humor that works really well with mine, and we've had this stupid running joke for three years that he brings up when I'm not expecting it. He makes me laugh a lot, and these days, that can really help.

"This is going to sound so sappy, but I love just being around him. I can't remember the last time we had an awkward silence: He's one of those people I feel completely comfortable with one on one, even if we're just sitting together reading, or getting ready for bed. I don't have to be this big badass, or Lieutenant Commander Williams, or the second human Spectre around him; all I have to be is me. Everything I've buried to get here, I feel safe digging up again.

"... except one thing."

> **four (deleted)**

"I fucked up, Sarah. I fucked up back at your wedding reception and finally told him today - he's never been that angry at _me_ before. And he has every right to be.

"He said he needed time. I'm so scared he's going to take that time and decide he's tired of this.

"I guess that's how I know it's real. It's not that he's the first person I want to tell anything, the first person I wanted to see when I got shore leave before we were both on the _Normandy_ again, it's that I'm scared of losing him. And I've lost him before. He left the Citadel and we lost touch, then he came back working for Cerberus on a suicide mission, and it broke my heart.

"And now I think I broke his.

"The worst part is, he'd never do what I did. He's so loyal he just went along with Shepard when she turned up working for Cerberus. He's so loyal he went on a suicide mission for me when he hadn't seen me in over a year. He's so loyal he disobeyed a direct order because he wanted to get out of there and be with me when he hadn't seen me in months.

"God, I hope he's loyal enough to forgive me."

> **five**

"He's not just loyal: He's forgiving.

"I hurt him, and he's mad, but he thinks _I'm_ the brave one, and he's willing to put it aside. To rebuild.

"I can't believe he's with _me_. He's all heart and impulse but this time he kept away for a day and thought it through and he came back willing to focus on the important thing, that we love each other. Even though hiding this is kind of against his culture.

"And the make up sex was _amazing_. Gotta figure out a way to make that happen more without actually hurting him again. It's not worth that."

> **six**

"Remember how you had that friend on placement in second year - I think her name was Te Anau? And she started sleeping with that guy as friends with benefits, and a few months later they were dating?

"That's kind of how it started, except we got cockblocked the first time, and he's... a squadmate, so we didn't try it again because of fraternization. So. Sexual tension, with someone you're working and living with. It was... intense.

"And then we lost the _Normandy_ , and everything sort of shifted. We both needed someone, and we were the closest to each other. But I still didn't let anything happen until after I was reassigned. Career first, the way it's always been.

"... the way it is now, or I'd be more open about this.

"This isn't fair on him."

> **seven**

"I'm dating a former vigilante.

"God, that's a weird thing to say. It shouldn't be, it might be one of the least weird things about dating him, but it's weird to think about. You know I've never been into those superhero vids you like - yeah, sure, the guys are hot, but the idea of someone taking the law into their own hands...

"I guess it's different if it's somewhere without a law. Without a law more comprehensive than 'don't fuck with Aria', anyway. Because it really was about helping the helpless, for him, protecting those who couldn't protect themselves, or at least it started that way. Protecting people's part of why I joined the Alliance.

"I'm dating the former leader of a multispecies squad of vigilantes.

"I've never worked with him as a leader. I've always outranked him on the _Normandy_ \- I've led him on a few assignments back in the day, but never the other way around. I wonder what he's like in charge.

"... I love his voice when he's talking about ordinary business; it might be safer for everyone if he's _not_ giving me the orders."

> **eight**

"Sometimes I worry that because of how we started - drunk the first time, emotions already running high because we'd lost people, scared of losing each other, throwing sex into the mix - that this isn't real. That because of the distance - because we missed each other and the _Normandy_ , because he was miserable - we made this whole thing up and just fell for the versions of each other we wanted. Sometimes I worry that he's going to wake up one day and realize he could spend the end of the world with some turian woman he already understands and doesn't have to hide his relationship with.

"And then he smiles at me across the mess, and I'm not worried any more. He's seen me at my lowest and he stayed with me. Even when I'd hurt him he tried to make it better. He's seen me injured and he patched me up. He's lived through my everyday life and he understands it because he was a part of it. He's seen me first thing in the morning and he's seen me glammed up for the press. He knows exactly what reality he's getting here and he doesn't just think I'm good enough, he thinks I'm _better_ than enough. And I just wonder how, in the middle of this huge war, I could be so lucky.

"Oh, shit, I said the T-word -"

> **nine**

"He was willing to die for you. He's never met you, and he was willing to die for you because you're my sister. And I never even asked him to. He just heard about something attacking our colonies and thought of you and Lynn and Abby and Mom, and he said, 'I'm in.' We hadn't even been in touch for over a year and I was the first thing he thought of.

"If you think any less of him for anything else, remember that."

> **ten (audio only)**

"If you had to pick five things about yourself to tell someone else as an introduction, what would they be?"

"Um. Reaper Adviser, definitely. I think I'd count the other things like coordinating ships for the Crucible as a second thing. Gunnery Officer: I've been at this long enough to have soundbites about it from my first tour, and the _Normandy_ 's a famous enough ship to make up for the low rank."

"... Do you want a promotion? I could probably recommend you for a promotion."

"No. I like my position, and I don't need any more responsibilities on here. Wait, did that sound lazy?"

"A little."

"Damnit."

"It's okay, I know you're busy with the Hierarchy stuff."

"If you're sure."

" _I_ know you're not lazy."

"Well, okay."

"That's three."

"Maybe I'd mention Archangel, but leave out the part where it ends with most of the team dead."

"Huh. After the way you dodged around it with me for ages and didn't tell James the full story, I wouldn't have expected that."

"I'm getting better about it. I poured almost two years into it, and we _did_ help while we were doing it. And last I think I'd mention that I used to be in C-Sec. I wasn't very _good_ , but it did lead to everything else, and my dad basically groomed me for it."

"So... you'd say the most important things about you are what you've done?"

"Yeah?"

"You _hated_ C-Sec, and from what you've said, they weren't too impressed with you either. I'm surprised you'd want to associate yourself with them."

"... _oh_. I think this might be a cultural thing."

"How?"

"Society first, remember: Introductions in most turian cultures include your contribution to society; the main variation for formality is how much detail you go into. That's why I always give people your full rank and the long name for Spectre."

" _Oh_! And here I thought you just liked showing me off, or wanted to give me a few more words to listen to in that voice of yours."

"Those are certainly bonuses."

"You're gonna have to tell me all your medals and whatever in case I ever need to do a turian style introduction for you."

"That'll be easy: I don't have any."

"Your other achievements, then. I _know_ you have _something_."

"I guess there _was_ that batarian spy ring... Hey, do you have new mail or something? Your omni's blinking."

> **eleven**

"I think I told you he's a Reaper Adviser. What that means is that he got a little government funding to try and prepare his home planet for the Reapers - only a little, because they didn't entirely believe it - and then once they hit, they turned to him for tactics. He's with us on the _Normandy_ now, but the... leader, of his planet, I mean, still calls him a lot for advice. They're being hit like Earth is, and he's... not in _charge_ , he's too far away for that, but he has a lot of sway on how they're fighting back.

"He used to help out with the injured soldiers from his planet, too, getting them supplies and treatment and a safe place to go once they're off-planet. But they needed someone more permanently on site for that, so he trained a team of officers to replace him, and from what I hear, they're doing pretty well.

"I'm really proud of him.

"He's a Gunnery Officer, with us. Always tinkering with the _Normandy_ 's guns and cannons, making sure the programming's as accurate as it can be. He's got such a head for calculus. Sometimes he helps James with _our_ guns, too, like he used to help me back on the old _Normandy_. When he wasn't busy with the Mako, anyway.

"In the field, he uses sniper rifles and assault rifles like me, and he's incredible at sharpshooting and tactics. I can't wait to do a mission with him again. He's picked up some new tricks since we last worked together and I'm so excited to see him in action.

"God, it's so good to be back. Being able to talk about work and even collaborate with him on bilateral efforts instead of having to keep everything classified from him, both of us knowing the way we think and approach things, seeing his work ethic, he's even teaching me some of his moves. Working with him again makes me feel like I'm back where I belong."

> **twelve**

Ashley opens her mouth, and then the door opens behind her and she turns around to find Garrus walking in.

"Hi," he says, and he comes over for a greeting headbutt. ("I've seen humans kissing each other goodbye," he's observed to her before. "Turians sometimes headbutt people hello.")

"Hey," she says, pressing her forehead closer to his in return before he pulls away to vault the couch and sit next to her.

"EDI said I needed a break," he says. "What are you up to?"

"Telling Sarah about you," she says, gesturing at her omni-tool camera, and his mandibles flare before she says, "It's okay: I'm recording, not live. And I probably won't use this one anyway. But in case I do..."

She looks into the camera again, and takes his hand in her lap. "This is him," she says clearly. "My boyfriend, Garrus Vakarian. And yeah, he's a turian, but this... I _know_ you know what love looks like, Sar, and this is it."

"I have several honorable intentions towards your big sister," Garrus tells the camera, and she laughs as she closes the app.

"Really?"

"Yeah, but some of them you don't want to talk about yet," he says, brushing some of her hair behind her ear, and while she's once again struck by the weight of his love for her, he adds, "You tried to excuse my being turian."

Ashley nods. "I'm just... trying to tell her the other things about you first, and then tell her you're turian in person. Once she knows _you're_ a person."

Garrus draws his mandibles together, but all he says is, "Hm."

She sits up. They've talked about this. He'd said he didn't want her to get disowned. "What?"

"I've been thinking," he says. "My species is _part_ of my being a person. And I never used to think that before. Not on the Citadel when I was coming into more contact with other species. Not even on the _SR-1_ when I was the only turian for the first time in my life. Not until it got in the way of a relationship, and e _spe_ cially once it became something my girlfriend didn't know how to tell her family."

It stings almost as much as if he'd physically clawed her. Ashley recoils off the couch, getting up to look out the window instead of at him. "Garrus..."

"I _understand_ ," he says. "That doesn't mean I like it."

She wills herself to turn around. He's still on the couch, looking stony. "I'm sorry."

Garrus shrugs. "I know you are. And I know you're more scared than sorry. That's why I'm not demanding you tell her right now."

Denying that she's more scared would be lying. For a long moment, she simply studies him, wondering what the hell she can do to make this better, and she's about to ask when he sighs and asks, "Can I at least know what you _are_ saying about me?"

"Of course," she says quickly, bringing up her omni-tool to send him the entire folder of videos.

He barely looks at it before glancing up at her, his expression somewhere between startled and touched. "You made _eleven_ videos?"

"Twelve: I deleted one. I didn't know what I wanted to say," she admits. Cautiously, she returns to the couch to sit down with him. "Still don't. I'm gonna edit bits of them together once I figure it out."

He gives her the briefest, lightest headbutt, barely long enough to blink, and then starts watching. Ashley cringes hearing her own voice, but soon starts watching him instead. For eleven videos, he doesn't say anything, though he does laugh when she describes him as "too tall", and his face goes through shades of thoughtfulness and affection.

After the last video finishes, he remains quiet a few moments more, then asks, "Were you going to tell me you recorded _me_?"

"Yes," she says honestly. "I'm sorry. I was never going to use that one, because I want to tell her you're turian in person, but I wanted to get some ideas, and I wanted to see how you saw yourself."

"I see myself as more than what I give," he says. "I'm a terrible turian like that."

She chuckles. "Yeah, but you're _my_ terrible turian."

"Yeah," he says, his face softening as he squeezes her hand. "... so the seventh video was interesting."

Ashley winces. "I wouldn't have used that one either. I was really tired that day and I think I just wanted to get it out, and it's weird talking about you with James or Shepard -"

"I've had the exact same thoughts," he says, and she falls silent. "Except for you seeing me at my lowest - although that club in the 800 blocks was pretty close - and patching me up when I was injured. I've worried about whether we'd last, too, worried that you'd decide a human lover would be easier to deal with."

Faith wasn't enough. They would trust each other with their lives, she has no doubt about that, they're too good squadmates for anything less, but she leans to the cynical side of realism and he usually expects the worst. No wonder they both expect to get hurt.

"Ash," he says, mandibles drawn, and she realizes silence after he'd said he was worried is not reassuring.

"A human lover wouldn't be you," she says. "You're one of the best things that ever happened to me. I don't _care_ that it's hard: I'm a Williams. We may not always get it right, but we don't give up. So I'm going to own this. Making this video is me _trying_ to own this."

He studies her for a moment, then nods. "Okay," he says. "I know you're trying, and I'm thankful for it. And I know you can do this. You were stubborn enough to reach Lieutenant Commander even with your own military against you, so I'm _pretty_ sure you're stubborn enough to tell your sister about your boyfriend."

Well, he's right about her stubbornness with her career, if not quite her motivation for this video. She smiles, though she's thinking about how to put this into words. "It's not that I want to tell everyone, not really," she says eventually. "I just want to not be afraid to be... _us_ , in front of even one more person. I wasn't into constant public displays of affection with my high school boyfriends or anything, but I wasn't _scared_ of them. And I want my family to know you. I want the best people in my life to not exist in two separate spheres."

He nods. "Knowing how scared you are and that I can't fix it because I'm part of the problem is one of the hardest things for me. Next to that, hiding this is just a pain in the ass. But don't ever think for a second that you're not worth it."

"I won't," she says, and means it. She sticks out a hand, her pinky finger extended. "And I promise I'm going to do everything I can to make this work."

Puzzled, he stares at her hand, and then looks up at her. "I promise too, but what are you doing?"

"Pinky promise," she says. "Human tradition. Here - last finger. Like you do under the table sometimes."

Immediately he's very serious about linking pinkies and shaking, until she tells him, "It's kind of a kid thing. But the adult promises are, well. Picking up speed."

"When you're ready to go faster, let me know," he says, and kisses her forehead.

She nods. "What do turians do for promises?"

"Uh, give our word," he says. When her eyebrows rise, he shrugs. "Turian honor."

"I could use some of that," she murmurs.

"You already have some," he reminds her.

"More." She headbutts him almost absently. "Thank you for believing in me."

"I've got faith in you."

> **thirteen**

"You've probably noticed by now that I haven't said his name, or his ethnicity. There's a reason for that, and I want to tell you in person. You deserve to find out in something more personal than vidmail. _He_ deserves to have that told in something more than vidmail.

"But you always watched those _Normandy_ news vids, and you're so smart, so if you've figured out it out... Yeah. The only reason it's - a _thing_ is because of our surname and my job. But when it's just the two of us, or we're with friends, it doesn't matter. He's... a person, like you and me. Hopes and dreams, passions, loved ones. He just happens to be from a different culture, like Thomas was.

"I just hope you don't think any less of me for loving him."


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Videos were just a start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi.
> 
> I'm truly sorry for these two chapters taking so long. For context, my life has changed a hell of a lot since the last OpSec update, let alone starting the _Incident_ universe. I have less time and energy for writing these days, and sometimes just want to spend that on fluff or AUs or smut instead of the hard stuff of plot and relationship development and putting more narrative scaffolding around dialogue floating in the abyss.
> 
> But the vast majority of that 'easier' writing has still been in this universe, or in the case of the AUs, branching off from it. I still love this wider story, and have notes and fic fragments through the end of ME3 and even looser ideas for post game. I intend to keep at it. Thank you so much for your patience with me.
> 
> (Shoutout to Tumblr user falcon500-blog for coming over to ask that, by the way! Though my writing's slowed down, I'm generally pretty happy to answer questions or chat about this universe.)
> 
> Because this universe has such a hold on me, I've commissioned art of scenes from ["Jus Post Bellum"](http://pohutukaryl.tumblr.com/post/161704755806/garrus-turns-around-and-kisses-ashley-pressing) and [_White Flag_](http://pohutukaryl.tumblr.com/post/158286987826/garrus-turns-around-and-pulls-ashley-into-a) :)
> 
> The inevitable _Andromeda_ and less inevitable _Discovery_ notes: I've finished Andy and am keeping up with the Disco, and so occasionally reference things or characters introduced in them. Nothing plot relevant, though (like, the thing I mention most because it makes me laugh literally only comes up on a forward station terminal), so if you're not up to date, you should be fine.

"Huh," Ashley murmurs.

It's the first time in quite a while that either of them have spoken, seated together on Garrus's cot. She's toying with Bilal's tags as she reads from her omni-tool; Garrus is absently rubbing her shoulder with one hand and holding a datapad with the other. A quiet night, they'd agreed, after Benning.

Garrus's hand pauses on her shoulder. "Hm?"

"Sarah finally got Thomas's tags back and an Alliance flag," she says, angling the e-mail window to show him the photo. "She's been wanting to put some photos of him at the memorial wall in the docks but now she feels more like she _can_."

"Oh, good," he says. "I hope it'll bring her more closure."

"Same," she says. "But... she doesn't want to do it alone." And Mom, Abby, and Lynn are still waiting for evacuation to the Citadel and she's not sure when the _Normandy_ will be there.

He gives her shoulder a pat that seems more like an attempt to soothe her emotions than her shoulder when the intercomm switches on.

" _Good evening,_ Normandy," says Shepard. " _We're heading back to the Citadel for our next jump; EDI and Joker say we should be there late in the Galactic Standard afternoon. You know where to send your grocery and requisition wishlists. Shepard out._ "

Ashley brightens, and opens a chat window with her sister. "That's a lot sooner than I thought." `Coming back tomorrow afternoon!` she adds to Sarah.

"Yeah, we're checking in more often than our first two tours," Garrus says. "We keep finding things that could be useful to someone. Plus, Copeland likes fresh ingredients."

`yay!!!!!!` Sarah messages her. `i'll get set up, i know you guys aren't always around for very long`

`If we're there overnight, I can sleepover if your flatmates are okay with it, maximize our time,` she suggests, then starts typing another e-mail. "Dr. Michel's going to be happy I can finally see the new physio."

"Mm, you finally can get a specialist to look at you instead of just exercises with Chakwas." She can just about _feel_ his critical look, because it doesn't often get aimed at her. "I'm still surprised you got cleared for active combat duty."

"Pretty sure my medical team knows my limits and my treatment better than you do," she points out.

"I know," he says, and presses his mouth to her shoulder. "I just worry about you. I don't like my girl aggravating an injury that's still healing." She can't help but smile at how casually he says 'my girl', and he answers it with a frown and a sterner tone. "Don't give me that innocent look. You holstered our heaviest rifles on that shoulder today and didn't even bother to put in the ultralight materials."

It suddenly clicks that his rifle recommendations for her now run much lighter than their gun chats on the SR-1, and it's undoubtedly because of her shoulder. However, as touching as this is, it's somewhat eclipsed by another realization: "Whoa. Is this cowboy cop Vakarian, or Archangel?"

Whoever it is, it's hot, and then adorably, hilariously flustered as Garrus flaps his mandibles, speechless. He is spared further teasing by her chat window lighting up with a photo from Sarah, this one of some printed photos of Thomas with Sarah, with family, with friends, all piled together.

`halfway through`, Sarah sends a second later. `can you say something about our family before i put this up? since they won't be there. i want him to hear it` Ashley's about to reply when Sarah adds as an afterthought, `my flatmates are away tomorrow night anyway!`

`I'll say it,` Ashley types, and sighs. "Could people please stop asking me to do public speaking?"

"Hm?"

She shows him the message. "I know it's not really public speaking, it's just speaking _in_ public, not _to_ the public, but... this is going to be harder," she says. "It's like a pep talk, but more about closure than cheering her up."

"I've talked to squads of soldiers, to branches of Hierarchy government, but the speech that was hardest was at my mom's funeral," Garrus says, a quiver in his subharmonic, and she goes still. "I still don't remember how it went, just people telling me afterwards that it was brave or whatever. I've never even bothered to look at my draft on my omni-tool since then."

"I know it was brave," she says firmly, pressing her forehead to his. "Because it was you."

He doesn't speak, just closes his eyes and breathes, one hand cupping her cheek.

After a long moment, she murmurs, "I spoke at my dad's. His favorite poem. It was the first time in years that I forgot a line - had to look it up on my omni-tool halfway through."

His mandibles splay, so she pokes one. "Shut up."

"I didn't say anything," he protests, earning another poke. "Anyway, maybe this will be easier than the poem: There isn't anything to get wrong. You're just speaking from the heart about your family. And if Sarah asked you to say something instead of doing it herself, she obviously trusts you to get it right."

Mollified, she sets her hands down. "When you put it like that."

"I know you'll get it right," he says. "Because it's you."

She can't even get mad at him for turning her own words against her when it's this sweet. No doubt seeing this on her face, he kisses her nose, and she smiles despite herself. "Are you sleeping over tonight?" he asks.

Ashley doesn't miss the faint note of hope in his subharmonic, but she shakes her head. "I want to go think about something to say for Thomas, and I've gotta fill in the paperwork to return Bilal's tags - gonna see if I can make Westmoreland hand it in to base for me so I can go straight to Sarah."

He nods, though the slight draw of his mandibles betrays his disappointment.

"Come with me tomorrow," she says impulsively, realizing she means it as soon as it leaves her mouth. "You were there for me after Virmire - after the _Normandy_ -"

"Of course," he says, taking both her hands and kissing her knuckles. "I'll always be there for you." She raises an eyebrow, and he hastily amends, "I'll be there for you as long as you want me here."

'Always' is a big word for him to have as his first instinct, and she's not sure how she feels about it. (Touched - reciprocal - pessimistic -) Rather than figure it out, she simply squeezes his hands. "Thank you. It means the world to me."

"Thank _you_ for asking me."

Before he reminded her that she can ask for help, she would have toughed it out on her own. She smiles.

Of course, there's someone else who's always wanted to help too. "Hands, please." He lets go, and she activates her omni-tool. "I think I'll ask Shepard as well. She was the first person I mentioned this whole Thomas, family situation to."

He nods, watching her type the e-mail. "Pretty sure she'll be there for you too. She helped a lot of people with family situations last year."

"You've told me about a few of them," she objects. "Killing someone's dad or daughter and saving someone's sister or son aren't exactly the same as a makeshift memorial."

"Shhh," he says, putting one talon over her lips. She considers for a moment, then lets her tongue swipe around his talon, and is rewarded with a low growl. "Get out of here before I _insist_ you stay the night."

Laughing, Ashley headbutts him. "I love you."

"I love you too," he says. "Sleep well."

 

In the morning, there's an e-mail from Sarah in the same chain as her video (`he sounds great`, Sarah had replied. `i never thought you'd be so cute talking about a guy like that`), consisting entirely of, `hey, do i get to meet him? ツ`

Ashley stares at it, and wonders.

 

By sheer coincidence, James ends up disembarking at the same time as her and Garrus. Though the Alliance docking officer's offer of ground transport extends to the whole crew, they've all been feeling a bit too cooped up on the ship to want to take a skycar, so they head to the elevator together. To her surprise, James just closes the elevator doors after Garrus hits the button for the lower docks.

"What are you coming down to the camps for, Vega?" asks Garrus. "Going to lose more money at poker?"

"What do you mean, 'lose'?" James says. "That's donations to the refugees."

"I hope you don't plan on listing your poker losings as charitable donations on your taxes," she says.

"Like anyone's doing taxes this year," he says, and she and Garrus laugh. Once they quieten, he adds, "I'm losing on purpose. These guys got nothing left but the clothes on their back, a few credits, and their pride. I wanna help out, but they don't take handouts. So I'm just betting stupid amounts and letting them think I suck at poker."

Touched, she ruffles his mohawk. "That's actually really sweet."

"Don't tell anyone," he warns her, fixing his hair.

"It's just between us three," says Garrus.

"Anyway, today I'm going down there for new ink," he says. "Jack says there's this batarian chick who knows it's an art."

"What are you getting?" asks Ashley.

James hesitates, and then says, "A back piece with the N7 insignia. I accepted an offer for the N6 course."

For a moment, she's stunned, and then she punches him in the arm and follows it up with a hug. "Congratulations! Why didn't you tell me, cabrón?" He'd mentioned while she was in hospital that he'd made N5, but she hadn't known he'd gotten an offer for N6 and thus a potential N7 certification.

"I only confirmed it this morning," he says. "And I didn't want to make a big deal out of it when I won't get to _go_ until after we kick every Reaper's ass."

"Hi," says Garrus. "Confused turian here. I honestly thought N7 was Shepard's favorite clothing and armor brand."

With how much N7 clothing Shepard owns, she can't find it in her to be too surprised, though she does have to stop herself from laughing as she turns to him. (James doesn't bother stopping himself.) "It's a vocational code," she says. "N's special forces; 7's the highest rank with 1 being the lowest. N training's hard to qualify for and brutal to actually _do_."

"Whatever you've heard, it's worse," James confirms.

Garrus nods as the elevator stops and they disembark. "What's your code?"

She points at her officer's jacket. "S1," she says. "I just switched a couple months before the Reapers hit - didn't have time to rank up, and now most of the training and testing's on hold anyway."

"Ash," says James, surprised. "You haven't done ICT?"

Tamping down her envy, she shrugs. "You remember my surname, right?"

" _You_ remember you're a Lieutenant Commander with medals and combat experience against a Reaper, right?"

"Hey, I don't know what COs you had, but the only one _I've_ had who'd think enough of me to recommend me for N school spent two years dead, six months working for Cerberus, and six months under house arrest," she says, trying not to sound bitter. "And she's got way more important things to worry about than my vocational code."

"Ash," says Garrus, and that's all the warning she gets before he squeezes her hand and then lets go, too fast to object.

"I mean, I don't _need_ to be dumped on an asteroid," she mutters.

"Yeah, that sucked," James says. "Don't do it."

And _that's_ what makes her wince and say, "James. Sorry. I'm being a bitch. Really, I am so proud of you; I can't wait to see you wearing the black, red, and white."

"We're good, Ash," he says. "Hug it out."

They hug. She pretends she doesn't feel Garrus watching them, probably wishing they could do that in public.

"You've gotta show me your tattoo once it's done," she says as she steps back.

"Yeah, of course," he says. "What are you two coming down for? Lemme guess, you're visiting the turians?"

She gestures at the memorial wall, where she thinks she can already see Sarah's auburn hair. "It's Sarah," she says. "They finally recovered Thomas's tags. She wanted me to say something at the memorial wall."

"I'm here for Ash," Garrus says simply.

"Shit, that's rough," James says, his eyes softening. "You want me to come too? I liked Sarah, that time we met at the hospital."

"No, it's okay," she says. "I'm probably already bringing too many people, between this guy and Shepard, once she turns up. But I'll tell her you thought of her."

He leans over and squeezes her shoulder. "Hang in there, mija."

"Thanks," she says. "I will. But I think Sar's tired of hanging."

"I hear that," he says. "Meet you guys back on the ship later?"

"Probably," says Garrus, and James leaves.

As they draw nearer to the memorial wall area, the redhead she'd spotted at the wall resolves into her baby sister, her arms wrapped around herself, and Ashley is ashamed to falter at the sight.

"I've got you," says Garrus, and she wishes she was brave enough to touch her own boyfriend in public, because she really needs a hug right now and James is off getting his tattoo.

"She's twenty-one, Garrus," she says. "When I was twenty-one the most I had to worry about was a CO who didn't like that Granddad surrendered, not..." Losing the man she loved. Waiting for most of her family to get out of a war zone, all alone, while her oldest sister goes in and out of war zones. Her money and studies in limbo.

Sarah was right to get mad at her for leaving.

"From what you've told me, she sounds like a strong woman," he says. "But even strong people need time to be weak."

Her hands tighten on the back of a chair. When she feels contact on the side of her pinky finger, she looks down to find Garrus's hand on the chair next to hers, just touching.

"I know you can do this," he murmurs. "You've been so strong for us before."

"It's different," she says quietly. "Crew's close to family, but it's _not_."

"I know."

She drops her voice even softer. "I'll probably need cuddles later."

Garrus nods. "That can be arranged."

"Am I late?" They turn around as one to find Shepard coming towards them. "Sorry - got caught up in things."

"You can make up for it by hugging her," says Garrus, and Shepard briefly flashes him a sympathetic look before coming forward for a hug.

Ashley lingers, letting the people who have saved her a million times save her again. She feels like a whiner saying how hard it is to watch Sarah grieve alone, especially when she barely knew Thomas herself, but both Shepard and Garrus just nod, and listen to her talk about how similar Sarah is to her father, and support her.

"We've got you," Garrus says. "And you've got this."

She nods, and takes a deep breath. "Right. Here we go."

Her arms are already open as she approaches Sarah and says, "Hey," but this doesn't prepare her for the look on her sister's face: Still trying to hold it together in public even if she can't manage her usual smile. Sarah comes in for the hug, and it's only then that her face crumples against her cheek, and Ashley wraps her arms tight around her, wishing she could take on her pain through touch alone.

"Hey," Sarah echoes, her voice small. "I'm really glad you're here."

Drawing back, Ashley holds on to her arms. "Just you today? You said you'd been making friends..."

"I thought this was kind of heavy to drop on people I haven't known that long," says Sarah. "But maybe I'll show them his display some other time."

She nods. "James is thinking of you. And I brought a couple of people I've known for years - is that okay?"

Garrus gives a tiny wave as she gestures towards him and Shepard. Sarah blinks and waves back before saying, "Yeah, that's fine. I'm glad you've got people."

"You've got me," Ashley says firmly. "You wanna say anything, or do you want me to start?"

Sarah shakes her head. "You first."

Turning to where Sarah's pinned the photos, Ashley takes a deep breath, and starts talking about their trip to the beach the summer she enlisted. Mom had said they'd remember that day; she probably didn't anticipate the circumstances under which they would. At the time, Ashley hadn't understood it: They were fighting over something she doesn't even remember any more, Abby was complaining about her party, she was feeling ugly next to Lynn in her new dress. How could it be a good day? But now she knows that it was. Now she'd love to have such an ordinary day again, instead of knowing her family was living under the shadow of war.

"I remember that day," says Sarah, a faint smile on her face. "I wanted everything on my ice cream."

"You were a brat when you were eleven," she says fondly. "Everyone was, but -"

A tap on her shoulder has her turning around to find Shepard looking awkward. "Hey. You guys okay?"

"We will be," she says, and at Sarah's raised eyebrows, she adds, "Shepard, my little sister, Sarah Taualii-Williams. Sarah, my CO, Commander Shepard." Sarah's been seeing Shepard in the vids and Ashley's been telling Sarah about Shepard since the first _Normandy_ , but this is the first time they've actually met in person.

"I'm very sorry for your loss," Shepard says, before turning back to Ashley. "Ash, I'm so sorry, something just came up. Do you mind if I go?"

"No, it's fine," she says. After all, the part she'd been irrationally worried about, talking about their family, is over. "Hope it goes well."

"Thanks, Ash," says Shepard. She reaches out to squeeze Sarah's shoulder. "If there's anything the Alliance or a Spectre can do for you, you let me or Ash know."

Sarah looks at the only person back from the dead Ashley knows in the flesh, and says, "Bring my husband back."

Shepard winces, her voice dropping as she repeats, "I'm sorry."

"Thank you, Shepard," Ashley cuts in, before Sarah can try to guilt trip her.

Perhaps sensing this, Shepard nods at her. "I should go," she announces. "Mrs. Taualii-Williams, I wish we'd met under better circumstances."

"Mrs. Taualii-Williams," Sarah echoes, her gaze returning to the wall as Shepard walks away. "I wish I'd gotten to hear you introducing yourself as Mr. Taualii-Williams more." She pauses, then looks at Ashley uncertainly. "Do you think he's hearing this?"

She'd always felt _something_ around Kaidan's name on the memorial wall, his old station on the SR-1 before that, and their father's grave on Amaterasu. Ashley nods, and gives her an encouraging smile.

For a moment, Sarah is still, and then she places a hand on the wall by the photos. "Hi, pele." Ashley steps back to face the wall with her, and she continues, "It's so weird being here. Never thought I'd go for a military guy, you know? Always said I wasn't going to be like Mom, wasn't going to move around constantly and be away from my husband all the time. And I really didn't think I'd marry a high school boyfriend."

Though she wells up with tears, the smile on Sarah's face is genuine. Ashley takes her free hand. "But you changed my life. For three years, you've made me so happy. We made it work in person _and_ long distance, and I was so, so excited and proud to be your wife, to have you as a husband, to hit four and five and more years together, to spend the rest of my life with you."

Sarah reaches into her pocket, pulling out Thomas's tags, and she holds them up to look at them.

"And now I don't even get to _bury_ you," she says bitterly, and Ashley wraps an arm around her and leans her head to her shoulder. "Because it was too dangerous and a waste of resources to bring all of you back and not just your tags. I get it. That doesn't make it hurt less."

As the tears start to fall, Ashley reaches for her jacket pocket, but Sarah beats her to it, pulling away to take a pack of tissues out of her own pocket.

"I'll always love you," Sarah tells the photos, fierce even through the tears threatening to choke her. "I carry your name in mine. I see you in the eyes of every soldier I treat, even the aliens; I work as much in your honor as I do for me. And your family's told me I'm still a part of them just like your memory is still a part of my family. I know I'm going to see you again some day, but please be patient: I'm gonna take my time, see and learn and live and love as much as I can. I am gonna have some _great_ stories for you, sweetheart."

She falls silent, wiping her eyes. Ashley waits until it seems like she won't say anything more, and finds that her eyes are watery too. "That was... amazing. Wish I'd recorded it for the in-laws."

"I think I can tell them the gist of it," Sarah says. "I just... said what I feel."

"Feeling better for getting it out?"

"Yeah, kind of," says Sarah. "Still doesn't feel quite _finished_ , but maybe that's just because I can't bury him."

Ashley nods, thinking of irradiated ashes on Virmire and a missing man flyby in Vancouver. "If you can think of anything else you want to do, I'll be here."

Sarah outlines Thomas's face in a wedding photo with her thumb, then her gaze drops to his tags in her hand.

Which is when Garrus approaches and reaches out to touch Ashley's arm, but stops halfway and pulls his hand back to his side; her guilt is just as strong as her relief. "Ash," he says. "Do you still want me here? Otherwise I might go check on some friends."

"I think I'm okay," she says. "Thank you. It means a lot to me."

He turns to Sarah and gives her a nod. "Mrs. Taualii-Williams, I'm sorry for your loss."

With a sideways glance at Ashley, Sarah says, "Thank you, Mr..."

Garrus meets Ashley's eyes first. "Garrus Vakarian," he says, when he _could_ correct his title; her sister of all people knows how to use military ranks like Gunnery Officer or his more impressive Hierarchy title.

He lifts a hand, pauses, and then drops it to handshaking level. Ashley stares at him, and then takes his hand; he puts his other hand over hers.

"Call me if you need me," he says, squeezing her hand, and then he lets go and leaves.

Sarah looks bemused when she turns back to her. "Uh, what was _that_ about?"

"Garrus is... one of my squadmates," she says, hating herself a little for the understatement. "He was on the first _Normandy_ \- the squad from back then was kind of like a second family."

"But turians don't know how to comfort humans?"

"Something like that."

Sarah's smile softens. "Looks like he's trying. I'm glad you've got a friend out there," she says. "I... just selfishly wanted you here."

Ashley pulls her into her arms and tiptoes to kiss the top of her head. "I really am sorry I can't stay," she says. "Mom, Abby, and Lynn will be here soon. And you've always been the best of all of us at finding your feet and making friends in a new place."

"I'm getting there," Sarah mumbles, looking at the tags and then at the wall again. "I'm getting there."

Suddenly, she pulls away from her, moves around a couple of photos to take the pin that had been holding one in place, and then hands it to Ashley. Ashley hangs onto it as Sarah unclasps the chain the tags are on, takes one of the tags, and holds it up to the photos.

"You sure?" Ashley asks. "There's been black market trafficking of Alliance tags in Cerberus occupied areas - I'd hate to think this would get stolen and end up with one of them."

"There are a ton of cameras around here," Sarah says, which is true. "Things don't get stolen, just covered up. And... giving up something of his feels right."

"A scarf?" suggests Ashley. "You brought back some of his gear, didn't you?"

"Stop thinking like a soldier for one second and think like a wife," Sarah says, snatching the pin out of her hand, and Ashley _stares_ at her. "Or a girlfriend, in your case."

She would not give up anything of Garrus's, she realizes. She never even deleted that poem he recorded her all those years ago, just buried it in more and more folders as she upgraded her omni-tool. If Garrus died and she had his belongings, his _family_ might have a hard time convincing her to let them go.

Then again, she's thought twice now that he was dead, and both times she was far away with no way of confirming it, so maybe she's a little clingy. Sarah's first time happened to be the real thing.

Sarah rearranges the photos, then pins the tag to a wedding photo, and steps back. From the look on her face, Ashley does not need to ask, "Better?" but she does it anyway.

"Better," Sarah says, and she even sounds better. "Yeah. _That_ was what I needed to do."

She looks at the remaining tag, then puts the chain on. Her stomach rumbles as she tucks the tag under her collar, and Ashley can't help but laugh at the look of surprise on her face, as if she'd forgotten that food existed.

"You wanna grab dinner?" Ashley pauses. "Or is it lunch? Sorry, I'm not on GST yet."

"It's dinner," she says, grinning. "You arrived late afternoon. But let's get takeout and eat at my place. Not really feeling up to cooking _or_ eating out."

Her omni-tool buzzes with a text message from Garrus. `Hope you and Sarah are okay. Dinner on me? x`

Ashley stares at it, then looks up at Sarah. "Do you mind if I have a squadmate over too? He's had to deal with losing family, so he won't be awful or anything."

"James?"

"Garrus," she says.

"Uh, okay," says Sarah. "We've got room. And if you trusted him enough for him to be your support at the memorial, that's good enough for me."

Let it be good enough for him to be my boyfriend, Ashley thinks. Out loud, she just says, "Thanks. I figured you should meet him properly, since I brought him along."

`Dinner at Sarah's,` she texts him. `Get yourself some takeout, I'll pay you back. Nav point to follow.`

Shepard texts her when they're in the rapid transit. `This is a ship text. I'm taking a trip to Omega. Long story but shouldn't take more than a couple of days and I'm promised ships, troops, and supplies at the end. So you're all on shore leave, but Williams is in charge if anything happens.`

Ashley stares. Of _all_ places to go, Omega? Still, she trusts Shepard, so she just texts back, ` I'll try not to let you down, skipper.`

`I know you won't,` Shepard replies.

"Looks like I can't stay over tonight like I wanted to," Ashley tells Sarah. "I'm in charge of the ship for a while."

Sarah whistles. "Look at you, all grown up and in command of the _Normandy_!"

"You'll be okay?" she checks.

"I think so," Sarah says, nodding. "Memorial helped, dinner will help."

She smiles, then texts James. `Hey Mr N5. You're next up if I'm unavailable. Eg. Tomorrow morning when I'll set my omni to emergency calls only during PT.`

` Ay ay ma'am `

`Wrong aye aye`, she points out.

Minutes later, as Sarah flicks through the menu on a takeout shop terminal, she texts Garrus, `Can I tell her?`

`If you feel like you can,` Garrus replies. `I'm here for you either way.`

"I think I'll have the pancit palabok," Sarah decides.

"I've got it," says Ashley, waving her credit chit, and she types, `I'll wait for you to get here.`

`I love you, bravest,` he texts back, a superlative from the poem he'd sent her, and she can't help but smile at her omni-tool.

 

Garrus shows up with his dinner and a succulent in bloom.

"Hello again," he says, presenting the plant to Sarah. "The extranet said that flowers are a customary gift for grieving humans from some of your cultures, but they die so quickly that I thought I'd get you something that lives."

There is a distinct buzz of nervousness to his subharmonic, but it's such a sweet gesture, not to mention one that he looked up and decided to do without asking her, that Ashley desperately wants to headbutt him.

"Thank you," Sarah says, taking the plant and placing it as a centerpiece on the dining table. "That's thoughtful of you. Please, call me Sarah."

"I've heard a lot about you," Garrus says.

Sarah eyes him. "I haven't heard much about you."

And there's an opening. Ashley takes it before she loses her nerve. "Actually, Sar, you've heard a lot: He's... my boyfriend."

For a long moment, Sarah simply stares at Garrus, before turning to her and blurting out, "Holy _shit_. _That's_ what you were leaving out of the video. I _never_ saw that one coming. You were so cagey with a name that I was wondering if 'he' was actually a 'she' and you were too scared to come out."

"Even if I wasn't straight, that would be dumb, after Lynn," she points out.

"Everything makes sense now. I _knew_ Reaper Adviser wasn't an Alliance position," Sarah exclaims. "They didn't even believe in the Reapers; they'd never have an Adviser! But you and..." She trails off, looking back and forth between them. "Does that even -"

She waves a hand at his crotch area, and Ashley buries her face in her hands.

That doesn't make her unable to hear the grin in Garrus's voice. "Oh, it does. Fantastically."

Ashley contemplates taking back what she said about never wanting to point a gun at him again.

"Ewww," says Sarah, and as Ashley drops her hands in dismay and Garrus glances at her with his mandibles drawing together, she adds, "My sister's having sex."

She hesitates, then asks, "You're okay with this? With... me dating a turian?"

"Uh, why wouldn't I be?" asks Sarah, genuinely baffled. "When Lupe caught my bouquet, I didn't say, 'No, you're dating a quarian, give it back.'"

Ashley throws her arms around her sister, unable to put into words how much it means to her that she accepts her boyfriend - accepts _her_ loving him. Hesitantly, Sarah pats her back.

"Look, I'm cool with you guys dating. I'm just sad that you thought you couldn't tell me straight out. Like you thought - oh my God, sis, you're crying," Sarah realizes, drawing back. "The last time I saw you cry was at our wedding. Luckily, you're in the flat of a war widow, so we have tissues _everywhere_."

Still unable to speak but now also because she's choked up, Ashley simply gestures between her and Garrus.

"She's been very worried about what you'd think of me," he translates, grabbing her a nearby tissue box. "She didn't want you to think any less of her for who she's dating."

"I'm just happy," she manages to add, holding the tissues instead of using them. "You're two of my favorite people in the world."

"You're my sister," Sarah says with a shrug. "I couldn't think less of you for dating _anyone_ \- unless it was, like, the Illusive Man. Or a Reaper. Or the pendejo who sent Thomas to Demeter. And you don't look like a human supremacist terrorist, a giant robot squid, _or_ an Alliance CO," she adds to Garrus.

"I think I'm closest to that last one," he says; thank God he doesn't point out his time with Cerberus. "The ship made me an Alliance e-mail."

"But the Alliance would never give you command," Sarah reasons. "Besides, that video was _super_ cute, so if someone can make my sister act like that, I don't care what species or gender or _whatever_ they are."

"Which ones did you end up using?" Garrus asks, mandibles flared.

"One clip said you risked your life for me," says Sarah. "So I need to thank you. Bring it in - and duck, because Ash is right: You _are_ too tall."

Ashley laughs, finally wiping her eyes and face as Sarah and Garrus hug.

"I owe you one," Sarah says into his shoulder.

"You're hosting me for dinner," says Garrus. "We're even."

Eyes wide, Sarah draws back. "Dinner!"

Their food's cold, but Sarah hurriedly reheats everything and starts serving it on plates. ("They're in perfectly good containers, Sar." "I just got these plates! Besides, what kind of impression of our family do you want to give your boyfriend?!" "It's fine, they included cutlery -" "I'm gonna need turian cutlery in the flat!") Ashley watches in delight as her sister and her boyfriend dive straight into the process of getting to know each other, both having heard enough about the other from her or third parties for some decent starting points.

"How's firearms training going?" asks Garrus. "I caught up with Lamont today - she tells me you flew."

"It was my first time and it was, like, half a metre!" Sarah protests, as Ashley raises an eyebrow and resists the urge to laugh. "Trust me, I got the picture about recoil after that. And the important part is that I got right back up to try again, right?"

Garrus smiles over at Ashley with a slight tilt of his head towards Sarah and a pointed nod at her which she decides to interpret as _she's like you_ , before giving Sarah's stories about firearms training more of his attention.

They're getting along. Sarah's smile is not the customer service smile she gets when she's uncomfortable in company; Garrus's mandibles only move for amusement and surprise, not unhappiness. Though she interjects to back up or occasionally deny stories, mostly, she just listens. Jokes occasionally fall flat until she provides cultural background, and then everyone's laughing, and Sarah actually knows more about turians than she'd expected. (More than she'd known before Virmire, even.) She suspects Garrus may be profiling Sarah from the quick way his eyes move over her, but when Sarah excuses herself to the bathroom at one point ("is there something in this Citadel water compared to planetary water? I feel like I've been peeing more than I used to"), he still doesn't say a word against her.

"You're being weirdly quiet," says Sarah, as they wash up and Garrus takes a call in Sarah's room. "Thought that'd be my job, on a day like today."

"Do you like him?" she asks.

Sarah nods without hesitation. "So far," she says. "I can see why _you_ do."

"I love him," Ashley says simply.

There's something a little fragile in Sarah's smile. "Yeah, I can see that too."

Ashley pauses, then touches her shoulder. "Hey. I'm sorry."

"What, for not telling me straight? Because I meant I was sad about the fraternization crap making you think you could lose your job for this; I wasn't making it about me -"

Not actually what she was thinking about, but still a relief to know. "That too. I meant I'm sorry for bringing my boyfriend over when you're grieving _your_ man."

Utterly bewildered, Sarah scrunches her face up. "What the hell? You do not need to apologize for being in love and happy just because my husband's dead."

"I didn't mean to rub it in your face -"

"You're really not. Rubbing it in my face would be, like, having him right next to you at the memorial, holding hands over dinner, and gross pet names every two seconds. And even if you were..." Sarah smiles, warmer now. "It's nice seeing you _happy_ , Ash."

"I've been happy," she says, puzzled. "You saw me the day of my Spectre induction."

Sarah shakes her head. "Not like this. This is the happiest I've seen you since you enlisted. I look at you, and I see the way I felt around Thomas."

She'd only seen her sister with her late husband a handful of times, but each time, Sarah had been radiant. Ashley smiles. "I lucked out."

"It's just kinda funny that you lucked out with an alien. Like, how does the cross-species thing work out? Besides the sex," she adds hurriedly. "I mean, humans can be different enough without getting other species involved."

"We do a lot of cultural exchange," Ashley says, and resists the urge to smirk over using the term genuinely enough to mention it to other people, when once it had been their private euphemism. "Telling each other about the way we see things. And I'm pretty sure Garrus added a codex shortcut to his omni-tool for how often he looks stuff up."

"Huh," Sarah says. "You know, Melenis is thinking of sneaking me into a multicultural orientation workshop for new staff. Do you want me to send you my notes on turians?"

"Turian approaches to the workplace, healing, and grieving?" she says wryly. Sarah's told her about the cultural orientation workshops at the human hospitals she'd had placements at over the past few years. "Sure, why not."

Garrus comes back in putting his omni-tool to sleep, and immediately takes another tea towel to dry a plate. "Sorry," he says. "That was the Primarch."

" _Damn_ ," says Sarah, genuinely impressed. "Ash wasn't kidding about you being important. I'm going to treasure having someone who gets calls from the Palaveni Primarch drying my dishes."

"Everything okay with the krogan?" Ashley checks.

After passing Sarah the dry plate to put away, he lowers one mandible and wiggles his talons. "Mm. The usual. I've got to get back to the ship, though - the latest data will look awful on my small screens."

"I should head home too," says Ashley.

"Yes, _ma'am_ ," Sarah says, fond in her condescension. "Go command your crew."

She laughs. "Thanks for having us over, Sar. For... for everything."

"For the plate," Garrus adds helpfully.

"Thanks for being here," says Sarah. "I needed someone here - I needed to not be my own solar for one night. And you guys delivered. Garrus, it was so nice to meet you; I'm glad Ash has someone who loves her close by. Gimme your comm address, add me on SpaceNook, whatever."

They exchange comm addresses, public profiles, more hugs, and promises to keep in touch and visit again the next time they're on the station, and then Ashley and Garrus take their leave. She can't stop smiling as they find a Rapid Transit to get back to the ship, nor when she slides into the driver's seat and tints the windows.

Garrus pokes around for a satisfactory radio station, though he does lower the volume enough to talk. "That went well," he says, once she's got the skycar in the air.

"I didn't know what to expect," she admits. "I'd _hoped_ \- as much as I ever hope - but I didn't know what to expect."

"Neither did I, but I _definitely_ didn't expect you to just drop the bomb with no buildup."

She winces. "Should I have warned you?"

"I can roll with it," he says. "I'm just glad Sarah took it so well."

"I haven't been so relieved since they told us they weren't court martialling us for stealing the _Normandy_ ," she says.

"Good times," he says, and from the glint in his eye when she glances over at him, he's not talking about the lack of punishment.

Chuckling, she nods before changing the subject back to tonight. "Do you like her?"

"Yeah. There's a lot of you in her. Although - what did she mean about being her own solar?"

"Oh, it's a family thing," she says. They use the reference in front of other people so rarely that she can't actually remember having to explain it before. "She always puts a smile on: Dad used to call her 'sunshine', but he does exactly the same thing, so we'd joke that Dad's the sun and she's a solar battery because she's little."

He hums in thought. "So we're the sun for her today."

"Exactly. She needed to recharge."

"Do _you_?" he asks. "You said you'd need cuddles after the memorial."

Ashley considers. "It can wait," she says eventually. "It's not as bad as I thought it would be - I think I'm too relieved that she reacted so well to you. Get your work done first."

"Okay."

As they skirt near the docks, she gestures out the windshield. "This is the kind of view I wanted to have in hospital."

She can feel his eyes on her. "You'd rather watch ships coming and going than cars?"

"Yeah. Seeing all the Alliance ships reminds me of when we'd go to say goodbye to my dad when he was shipping out." She hesitates, and then adds, "Also, Shepard told me you were working down there, and some stupid, selfish part of me wondered what you could possibly be doing that was so important that you couldn't say hello."

"Ash -"

"I knew it was dumb," she cuts in. "I knew - I _loved_ that you were doing important work, and I wouldn't want to keep you away from your people. But I wanted to see it. I wanted to see you."

Silence stretches between them. Eventually, she adds, "Not that I'm holding that against you _now_. Fresh start and all," and finds that it's mostly true.

"Do you still want to see it?" Garrus blurts out. "You could come down there with me tomorrow and meet everyone, see what they do day to day."

She blinks. The bitterest part of her thinks this is too little, far too late. Mostly, she just wants their fresh start, though her old curiosity about their work can stay. She nods. "I'd love to."

"Tomorrow morning before your PT, then."

"It's a date," she says without thinking.

He pauses just long enough for her to realize what she just said. "Is it?"

"It's two soldiers looking at wartime veteran and refugee services," she says, but she's smiling as she parks the skycar.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I'm waiting on you for go-aheads on a lot of things, and I understand why, but I want to know where your head is."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a connection between a _Discovery_ character and a trilogy one briefly mentioned - if you're worried about Disco spoilers, I made that connection up.

"This is going to sound stupid."

Ashley's been quiet all morning; the elevator's an unexpected place to break her silence but he'll roll with it. "You're not stupid, Ash."

She still takes a moment to answer him, her lips pursing before she finally asks, "What do turians think of my grandfather?"

Ashley is possibly the one squadmate he never talked to about turian culture (well, admittedly turian superiority) in the elevators, as back then he'd found her insights on human military practices more interesting, but here they are doing it three years later. He should have thought before he invited the granddaughter of General Williams somewhere she'd be surrounded by turian soldiers.

"There are two main schools of thought, but they're both pretty positive, just for opposite reasons." She scrunches her nose up, confused. "The main one - the way the Incident's taught to us - is that he was militarily weak, but he did right by the civilians."

She brightens a little, like she's not sure she can let herself hope. "When you say the way it's taught, you mean kids learn that in school?"

"That's what my generation learned in school," he says, and he hits the close button on the elevator as it starts to open on the cargo hold, because he suspects she'll want to keep this modicum of privacy for now. "He put his people above his own reputation. Sure, we like military strength and wiping out our enemies, but it's because we don't want to risk our people by having to fight the same enemy twice. Society comes first."

"I'd wondered if what you'd said about him saving civilians was just you taking my side," she says. "When you say you're a bad turian, I can't tell what's you and what's your upbringing."

He leans down to headbutt her, drawing a smile back out of her. "That one's both."

"So what do other turians think?"

"Some people think he was an tactical genius," he says, to her utter bemusement. "He got the Hierarchy's guard down by surrendering, and then a month later, Drescher showed up with a fleet."

"That's insane," she says flatly.

"They think he set up a delayed attack," he says with a shrug. "They don't see Williams's surrender as the cause and Drescher's attack as the effect; they think it was all one incredible, if underhanded plan. That's the minority viewpoint."

"Wow."

"Cultural exchange," he says. It still baffles him that her military saw his surrender as weakness and then assumed she was weak too - ah. Maybe this is why she's asking. "If anyone makes assumptions about you from your grandfather, they'll expect you'll either put your people first or have some brilliant military strategy in your cowl, not that you'll be a coward or whatever varrenshit the Alliance has been telling you."

He watches her process this. In time, she meets his eyes again and says, "I'm not proud of how much I needed to hear that."

" _I'm_ not proud of how long it took me to tell you," he says, because maybe it would have helped to know that her grandfather's enemies respected him even if his own military didn't. He brushes her hair back from her face. "Do you still want to meet a lot of turian soldiers?"

"I do," she says, much more readily than before.

"Okay," he says. "Really, you don't need to worry. They'll love you as much as I do."

Her eyes flick to the elevator doors - still closed - but all she says is, "They'll have to get in line."

"I hope they won't love you in the same way," he jokes, and kisses her forehead. She catches his shoulder, keeping him close, his talons on the door controls the only thing holding the rest of the world at bay. "I'm proud to be yours, you know."

She looks up with one of her smaller, more honest smiles he suspects she reserves for him. "Right back at you."

With his free arm, he pulls her into a half-hug, letting his height and the way she leans her head on his chest mask his frustration, because hiding this in an elevator makes him feel like her dirty little secret. But he's just as frustrated with himself for feeling that way, because he does understand. He wouldn't want to be kept from the war for something as irrelevant as the species of the person he loves, not with his family and the whole galaxy in danger. She's putting society first, like a good turian would.

And _yet_.

It's not the first time he's felt like she's ashamed of him, but it's the first time since they've put a name to their relationship. It doesn't help that they're both more public figures than they were before, especially her. Though she doesn't draw the amount of stares and requests for help that Shepard does, he does see people recognizing her on their walks around the Citadel, so her fears aren't entirely unfounded. But they don't stop him from wanting to touch her in front of people, from wanting to introduce her as his girlfriend, from wanting to show his relationship status on his public profiles for the first time in two years (he'd hidden it after they'd let poetry say the _I love you_ and _I love you too_ s for them).

 _We'll want too much,_ she'd typed three years ago. He has the relationship, he has his love returned, he has her in his arms, and he still wants more.

"Thank you," she says, and she steps away. "Let's get going. Someone else probably wants this elevator."

 

He doesn't announce his presence entering the makeshift camp, preferring to observe the team at work with their new refugees (there are new people here every time he drops by). It doesn't take too long for people to notice him and turn to salute, or to notice other people saluting and follow suit.

"Look at you," Ashley murmurs, a smile in her voice as she walks a step behind. "You didn't tell me that 'Reaper Adviser' is _this_ high a rank."

"I might have forgotten to mention it," he admits, and then looks around. It's the first time he's introduced her to anyone since they put a name to their relationship, and he can't even say it. "I'm just showing a friend what we do around here - as you were."

There are a few curious glances at her, but people return to their tasks, and nothing appears to be going disastrously. His small team of leaders working this shift soon finish up their current tasks and come over to them, eager as always for approval and a catch up but also clearly wondering about Ashley. He skims fairly informally through Tacita, Appior, and Violante's introductions, giving Ashley the Alliance equivalent ranks where he knows they don't quite match or translate, and then turns to her.

"This is Lieutenant Commander Ashley Williams," he says, and he can feel a little more affection than is really professional slipping into his subharmonic, a pitch Ashley can't hear but which would be recognizable by turians. "Systems Alliance Navy, Office of Special Tactics and Reconnaissance."

"Spirits," says Tacita, shaking Ashley's hand. "I watched your induction ceremony on the news vids."

"I hope they got my good side," she says.

"I wouldn't know," Tacita says, and then flaps her mandibles, mortified. "Ma'am. No offence."

They all laugh, though Ashley has the grace to say, "None taken," with a smirk.

"At ease, everyone," Garrus says eventually. "This isn't an official check; she's here as my friend, not as a Spectre. How are we going?"

As he gets further into talking progress with Tacita and the others (some of the less wounded have taken over administrative and light medical assistance; Violante and Appior are working on contacting families, Violante to give death notifications, Appior for reunification), he notices Ashley drift away to some of the injured. He ends up listening to her more than to his officers: She's sitting down with them, getting their names, their stories, and then telling them that they fought with courage and honor, that they made a difference; she's thanking them for their service and empathizing with their situation.

"I've felt just as useless," she says. "I almost died the first day Earth was attacked. Ended up in Huerta Memorial for weeks with this bad head trauma and multiple shoulder fractures. It was... rough."

 _Oh_. Of _course_ she would gravitate to the injured.

Tacita nudges him. "You know, you should bring your human Spectres around more often," she says. "They're good for morale."

"I only have one human Spectre," he says without thinking, and promptly wants to kick himself as he is suddenly surrounded by twitching if not splayed mandibles.

However, the only comment comes from Violante, and it's not about his relationships with the human Spectres: "That time Shepard came around, there was a fire under everyone's asses for days. Even the ones who can barely move their asses."

"And those are the ones Williams is talking to," adds Appior, approval clear in his subharmonic.

"Have you ever been to Palaven?" a young woman with a stump of an arm asks Ashley. "Or Menae?"

"Not yet. My squad had a mission on Menae, evacuating your Primarch, but that was while I was in hospital," she says. "I want to, though. I'd love to see more of your people in action than just your Reaper Adviser, and I hear Palaven's beautiful when it's not covered in Reapers. Plus, someone I know grew up in Cipritine."

"I'll take you there after we win," he calls over his shoulder. He wants to show her everything that's still standing. He wants to walk her around all the places from his childhood. He wants to take her to his mother's grave and show her how Palaveni turians remember their dead.

The conflicted look on her face gives him pause (was this too intimate a comment for their audience?), but all she says is, "Promises, promises," before she turns back to the soldiers.

"You two are so cute it's almost annoying," says Appior, and he adds as an afterthought, "Sir."

"We're not -"

"You tried to introduce her all business," says Tacita, amid nods from her colleagues. "Which I'm sure you have a reason for, so I'm not going to ask."

Garrus breathes, immensely grateful for how turian professionalism sometimes translates into polite discretion. "Thank you."

Nodding, Tacita splays her mandibles, and opens her mouth to speak again when someone behind her says, "I've got a shipment for an Officer Caeciliax?"

"We'll get out of your way," he says, as Violante moves toward the courier. "Ash, let's head out."

"Thanks for dropping by," Violante says over the datapad.

"It was an honor to meet all of you," Ashley says, her gaze going to the injured as well as the officers, and he doesn't have a doubt that it's genuine. He could melt right here.

There's another chorus of goodbyes as they make their way out of the camp. He waits until they're well away before he tells her, "They want to see more of you."

To his surprise, she grimaces. "I was kind of rude, wasn't I, wandering off on the people you introduced me to."

"No, that's what they liked," he says. "You're a big important Spectre, and you came and talked to the injured instead of just the people in charge." It reminded him of when they ran into the husband of someone in the 212, the first time he saw a side of her besides 'human soldier under Shepard who appears to dislike me already'. "The most we can do for most of them is sympathy, and you didn't even need to be told."

"Well, I _have_ been in their shoes recently," she says. "I always liked getting visitors when I was in hospital, and since they're separated from their families and platoons, they're probably not getting many."

He glances sideways at her, and though she still looks pleased that his team liked her, he says, "I'm sorry." Not visiting her in hospital properly is becoming almost as big a regret for him as losing touch with her when he went to Omega.

"Hey," she says gently. "I forgive you. Yeah, I was mad back then, but not any more."

"Okay," he says, too relieved to keep his love for her out of his subharmonic. His omni-tool lights up with a notification, and after dismissing it as non-urgent, he checks the time too. "You know, we're pretty early for physio. You want to go do something?"

Looking at him from under her eyelashes, she types on her own omni-tool. `Is THIS a date?`

"A small one," he says impulsively. "If you want it to be."

Her gaze goes thoughtful, and then she smiles. "I want it."

 

It's been long enough since he's come here that he gets them turned around a few times before finding what he's pretty sure is the most obscure part of the Presidium's park. Despite many diplomats and businesspeople using this park on breaks, he's never seen anyone else in this particular part, which might be why the flowers here are a little less well tended than those by the ever popular lake.

Not that this makes the assortment of flora from the various homeworlds any less beautiful, judging by the look on Ashley's face as she sits on the ground with her eyes wide and a cup and a strange human baked good (he thinks it was called a muffin) in her lap.

"I can't believe there's no one here; it's pretty," she says. "How'd you find this place?"

"Uh, chased a suspect in," he says, and she chuckles. "Most exciting shift I ever had on the Presidium. Usually the crime up here's financial, not violent, so patrol shifts are pretty quiet."

"Works out for me," she says, leaning against him.

If she feels safe enough here for touch, then so does he. He drops a quick kiss to the top of her head as he wraps his arm around her side. "And me."

They start on their snacks in comfortable silence but for the crinkling of packaging. When it comes to Presidium dates, it's quieter than some of his patrol shifts here were; not that he minds. It's nice just being with her like this, nicer still to find some peace with her somewhere with fresh air instead of locked away from the world.

"We've done this all out of order," she says eventually. "Got to know each other, had sex, became friends, fell in love, started to meet the family, _finally_ had a first date."

Chuckling, he sets his drink to the side. "Look, we've lived strange enough lives since falling in with Shepard that we never should have expected our love lives to be conventional."

"Nah, I just didn't really expect a love life. I assumed I wouldn't fraternize," she taps him fondly on the nose, "and I'd be killed by geth, Reapers, or Collectors before I got to know a civilian guy."

"Glad I proved your expectations wrong, then."

"There's still plenty of time for the Reapers to take me out."

Garrus shrugs. "They'll have to go through me."

She laughs. "My guardian angel, one man against the invasion."

"Hey," he says, letting some of his battlefield bravado bleed into his voice, because _this_ , he can be proud of without regrets. "I've helped kill two Reapers, _and_ I helped destroy the Collector base. They _should_ fear me."

"I'll make sure to tell them that," she says, unable to keep a straight face.

They joke about it, but he _would_ put himself between her and the Reapers, and he's pretty sure she knows it too. No doubt she'd do the same for him. He smooths his talons over her waist. "They should fear you too."

"Oh, sure, me and my peashooter."

"You and your Reaper kill count just waiting to grow, and your incredible ability to not only survive whatever life throws at you, but come out even stronger."

Ashley brightens, rising just enough to headbutt him. "You, mi vida, are a flatterer."

The language channel in his translator briefly drops into a different pitch, the same pitch she uses for her grandmother and the same one James and Steve occasionally use for words like 'beer'. Garrus waits in case his translator gives him additional meanings, and then echoes, "'My life'?"

She nods, her face suddenly going shy. "I wanted to come up with something only I call you, remember? And this whole thing started after you saved my life: You were the first person I saw when you and Shepard and Liara came for me on Virmire."

He hadn't known that. His memories of rescuing her are blurry with geth and the thought of leaving Kaidan behind, sharpening only for Shepard scooping Ashley up into her arms after they'd fought off Saren. He headbutts her, and admits, "I don't know what to say."

"Do you like it?"

"Yes," he says, without needing to think about it.

"Then it's yours," she says, lighting up like a Palaveni aurora. "I've been thinking about this since I mentioned it; I just remembered I had another language to use yesterday: Sarah had a Samoan pet name for Thomas."

"What's Samoan?"

She chuckles. "Another human ethnicity. You're gonna have to tell me about more turian cultures - I know the homeworld's largely collectivist but there's gotta be little quirks around Cipritine besides your markings."

"Can it wait a bit? I'm in the middle of a date."

A second after she grins, her omni-tool rings, and she rolls her eyes as she shuts off her alarm. "It'll have to wait until after physio, anyway."

"Time to go?"

"Yeah." Still, she leans over to give him a soft, lingering kiss, her eyes warm when she disengages. "I had a great time this morning. Thanks for taking me to meet the people you worked with, and for showing me this place."

"Thanks for coming with me," he replies. "I like showing you off as much as I like hanging out."

She smiles, and squeezes his hand as they get to their feet. "Walk me there?"

"Any time."

They drop their hands as they leave their secluded little corner of the park, their conversation turning to the news, Sarah, and, once they're inside Huerta, her recovery.

"Tell me if there's anything I can do to help," he says.

"Ask Chakwas about my two person exercises," she says. "If she walks you through them, she'll probably let you help out instead of her - frees up some time she'd use on, say, Joker."

"Will do," he says, and pauses, letting his look say what he can't in public. "I'll see you -"

"Garrus Vakarian?"

He resists his instincts to draw his mandibles as he turns to find Dr. Michel coming towards them. Sure, she's Ashley's consultant, but his first association with her is still the comments she used to regularly leave on his public profile. He still doesn't know how she got his comm address three years ago. If only his move to Omega had severed his tie to her instead of to Ashley. "Doctor Michel. Long time, no see."

"I'm so glad to see you again," she says. Without looking, he can feel Ashley drawing closer to him. "But what are you doing here? Are you a patient?"

"Just dropping off the Commander for physio," he says, with a nod towards the Commander in question.

"Ah, hello, Commander Williams," says Michel. "You're in the same room as you were with Sere Nuara. Halime is just setting up."

Ashley nods, but her gaze lingers on him. "I'll see you back on the ship."

As she walks away, she brings up her omni-tool, and his lights up a moment later, but he's pretty sure he can't read it in front of Michel. He plays along with Michel's attempts at small talk just long enough to be polite, then makes an excuse to leave. "I should go," he adds for luck, since it always seems to work for Shepard.

"Oh, just a minute, Garrus," says Michel. "I have something for you in my office - I'll be right back."

He contemplates escaping, but he can already hear Ashley's voice in his head, mocking him for being scared of a doctor. Though the closest he's seen to jealousy from her is her violent but laughing reactions to his joking about Councilor Tevos, imaginary Ashley is far less mocking when Michel returns with a block of dextro chocolate for him.

"Ah, Doctor," he stammers. "I can't -"

"Consider it a thank you," she says. "For saving my life, back in my clinic in the wards."

She's already posted her thanks on SpaceNook, multiple times. Garrus refrains from mentioning this, instead checking the expiry date.

"I keep some chocolate for both amino acids around," she adds, by way of explanation. "Bribery for the children, thanks and a morale booster for the soldiers. A little trick I picked up in the wards."

Well, if it's for soldiers. "Alright," he says, tucking it into a compartment of his armor. "You're welcome. But I _should_ go."

 

Chocolate from an overly grateful woman definitely isn't enough to drive him to drink, but he likes Purgatory's music enough to use his rare solo downtime on it. He buys a Tupari, then notices a very familiar eyesore at a table with one of Ashley's favorite eyesores, her laughing, him grinning.

"Hey, Jack," he says, sliding into the seat between them. "XO Vega."

"Hey, Garrus," says Jack. "Where's your girlfriend?"

In his peripheral vision, James winces and looks around, which frankly only makes it more obvious, but he's pretty sure he can get away with this as long as he doesn't mention her name nor drop any key terms like _second human Spectre_. Jack already knows they had something, anyway.

"Physical therapy," he says. "She had some nasty injuries a while ago." Which happens to basically everyone in wars, so anyone listening in surely can't recognize her from that.

"Shit sucks," Jack says sympathetically, and then pauses, her eyes narrowing. "You didn't say she's not your girlfriend."

Despite himself, his mandibles spread. "Oops."

With a whoop, Jack holds up a hand; he knows by now to slap his palm against hers. "Congrats! You can finally stop moping and get laid." Garrus chuckles rather than point out some of the mopey sex they've had. "Bring her next time. I want to see what the big deal is, because she was a bitch on Horizon."

"Wait, you've met A--" James catches himself with a grimace. "Her?"

"I've _seen_ her," Jack corrects him. "We saved the colony of dumbasses she was posted to, and then she bitched out Shepard and Garrus for working with Cerberus."

Jack did not see Ashley at one of her finest moments. "If you want to meet her properly, I might get Vega to bring her," he says, getting a surprised look from James. "She's not big on public displays of... acknowledgment."

"Come on, who would want to publicly acknowledge _your_ ugly mug?" she asks, and then immediately contradicts herself by setting down her empty glass and declaring, "Hurry up with your drinks, assholes. We're going dancing."

"I _just_ got here," he says, holding up his Tupari. "You two go ahead."

Immediately Jack makes for the upstairs dance floor. James laughs, watching her go over his drink. "Guess she doesn't wanna waste her time away from the kids."

"I can't blame her," he replies. His seat and height give him enough of a view to catch her starting to dance by herself, but he can't watch for long. Her tattoos have always given him a headache under more normal lighting; the shifting lights here lower his tolerance for them considerably, even now that they're more covered up. When he looks back at James, he finds that he's watching Jack too, a different kind of interest in his eyes. "Jimmy, was I interrupting something earlier?"

"What?" James asks, in that slightly higher pitch that indicates lying across a surprising number of species. "Me and Jack? Nah."

His mandibles splay. "Okay."

"She's fun," James concedes. "And she was right about that batarian tattoo artist."

"Can I see?"

"Nah, give it time to heal up first."

"Hey, Vega!" Jack calls. "Get your ass up here already!"

James stands almost immediately, then looks embarrassed, and shoves his drink over to Garrus to cover it. "Here, you can have my leftovers."

"Trying to poison me?" he teases. He's pretty sure it's levo Tupari.

"Oh, shit, I forgot," say James. "Ash always used to steal mine. I'll catch you up there."

Garrus waves as James joins Jack on the dance floor, and watches them for a moment by trying to focus on their clothes rather than their tattoos. Jack tends to have questionable boundaries, but she definitely seems to be dancing closer with James than he's seen her with last year's squadmates, her hands pulling his hips towards hers; James is smirking about it. _Interesting_.

Once his head starts to hurt, he returns his attention to his Tupari, only for his omni-tool to go off with Shepard's ringtone.

`Ship text: Omega's back under the queen,` she announces. `Just got dropped off on the Citadel. Williams stands relieved.`

After that rescue mission that turned into blowing up a mass relay, he feels like he should have known she was doing something foolhardy when she went off on her own for an unknown period of time. `Actually Vega stands relieved. Ash is in PT. Don't fuck with Aria and Shepard?`

` No, it's 'don't fuck with Omega' now. I think I'm a good influence on her. `

`If anyone could be a good influence on her, it would be you.` He pauses, and then sends a follow up text. `You okay?`

`Aria's people patched up my injuries,` she replies.

`You okay?` he repeats, adding in a serious face for emphasis and to show it wasn't a glitch that sent the same thing twice.

There's a long delay before Shepard says, `Met someone I liked. She died.`

Given that she usually brushes off concern for her wellbeing with weak excuses about being fine, she must 1) have particularly liked this person, 2) be very tired, and/or 3) find this kind of thing easier to admit when it's not out loud. Garrus doesn't hesitate before texting back, `Want to go do something fun?`

` Plz. `

`Meet you at the rapid transit on our docking bay,` he says, and he finishes his drink in one gulp.

 

It's his second favorite place on the Citadel, Garrus reflects, leaning back on the skycar. Shepard is a Sentinel, much stronger with her biotics and her omni-tool than firearms, and competitive. He mostly challenged her to a sniping contest because he knew she wouldn't take it as seriously as she would a gun she actually uses. He's still surprised she made that first shot.

No, his favorite place is Ashley's Spectre apartment, where she dropped the bombshell that she loves him onto his head right as he was about to leave, where they reintroduced themselves to each other, where they dared for the first time to try and put the pieces of their relationship together instead of just breaking them into more. It's stupidly small and with the nature of Spectre accommodation, the odds of ending up in that specific apartment again are low, but it will always have a place in his heart.

Perhaps guessing why his smile's gone softer, Shepard says, "I'm surprised you didn't take Ash up here. She's the sniper, not me."

"You know what she's like about regulations," he says. "Extralegal powers are wasted on her."

"I don't know, I think she'd like it," says Shepard. "She liked the view from our old dock at C-Sec Academy. Called it romantic once when she thought Kaidan wasn't listening."

Ah, so that balcony scene in _Fleet and Flotilla_ was onto something after all. He tucks this away into his mental case file on Ashley, always grateful for these little stories about her Shepard sometimes drops. He's not sure if she does it deliberately, and he's too afraid she'll stop doing it to ask.

But Ashley's not the only one in this story, he realizes. He'd liked Kaidan. He wasn't just a highly skilled soldier and a powerful biotic; he was a good person, with a quiet yet sometimes surprisingly biting humor in the mess.

"Wonder what Kaidan would think of the way things are now," he says quietly. Of curing the genophage after they'd destroyed a krogan cloning facility, of biotic kids going to war, of the Council's choice for the second human Spectre, of him and Ashley. When old, tired grief starts to show on Shepard's face, he adds, "Of your girls' night out with Aria."

Her grief gives way to surprised laughter. "You mean my girls' night out with Aria, her ex, and half of Cerberus."

"Aria has an ex?" he asks, interested.

"She's a matriarch, she's probably got a few," she points out. "This one was turian. Did you know a Nyreen Kandros?"

"You know, I don't ask you if you know every human I run into," he deadpans.

Shepard's eyes widen, but then she catches the twitch in one of his mandibles. "You're messing with me."

"I think my father knew a Kandros woman in his circles," he admits. Which means she would have been fairly influential. "I don't think her given name was Nyreen."

"Well, Nyreen's the one who died," Shepard says simply. "Sacrificed herself to save a bunch of civilians." Her gaze slide to his scars, and then she says, "She had this gang, trying to protect everyone from Cerberus. Reminded me a bit of you and Archangel."

He hums thoughtfully. "Glad another turian stepped up to look out for Omega instead of waiting to see if Aria would ever get her head out of her ass."

Shepard chuckles, and he can't keep a straight face for long before joining in.

"I'm really proud of you," she says at last. "You've grown so much from that pissed off detective I first met in the Council Chambers."

"Thanks," he says, genuinely touched. "You've done some growing yourself."

Scrunching up her face, she shakes her head. "I'm just more tired than when you met me."

"Isn't that part of getting old?"

The wind actually does pick up as Shepard tries to throw her bottle cap at him. "Shut it. We're the same age now. I don't count when I was dead."

Huh. Even as he's slowly dismantled the pedestal he once put Shepard on, she's always had the slight edge of being older than him, but he supposes it isn't fair to count time she didn't actually live. "I'm getting old too," he compromises. "Might as well retire after all this."

"I don't know about turians, but I am nowhere near retirement age."

"Neither, but a long break would be nice."

"You've earned it a thousand times over." Shepard leans over and headbutts him. "Thanks for being there for me every time."

If he's not mistaken, this is a thank you for this silly outing as much as it is his joining her against every enemy since they first met three years ago. "You're welcome."

 

Ashley's lying on his cot when he comes upstairs from putting the Mantises away, wearing her Spectre hoodie and PT trousers. Even though she's clearly still doing physio stretches, she looks comfortable here, in his space, in looser clothing than the officer's uniform she usually wears these days. (Not that he'd ever complain about the officer's uniform - she's earned it, and she looks _fantastic_ in it, but she usually seems more on edge when she's wearing it.)

He waits until she finishes before he approaches, and once she sees him, she smiles and shifts sideways to make room for him. Leaning over her, he dips down and headbutts her, still revelling in the easy affection they can show in private.

"Hey," she says, touching her fingertips to the scarred side of his neck. "Did you have fun with Shepard? EDI said you went out to play."

"Yeah, she actually seemed to relax for half an hour," he says. "Also, I outshot her."

Ashley gives him this lazy smirk that somehow manages to make arrogance look sexy. "You know _I'm_ your real competition for sharpshooting on this ship, right?"

"You weren't available," he says, and presses a kiss to the corner of her mouth before lying next to her, curling an arm around her. "How was physio?"

"It was good," she says. "New physiotherapist says I'm actually on schedule for being back at one hundred percent, heavy rifles and all. She's weird, though."

"How so?"

"She's this very bendy asari who likes to mindmeld to figure out exactly where you're hurting."

Very gently, he rolls her onto her back and settles on top of her, getting a surprised but delighted smile. "Melenis used to do the same thing for massages." He's told her before about his Archangel squadmates, albeit just the basics of name, species, and pre-Archangel occupation because that was all he could bring himself to say that night. Melenis had been the second medic in her huntress unit before coming to Omega.

"You ever take her up on it?"

"Once," he says, and swallows. "She asked me to strip down and touched me while I was half-naked - I couldn't keep you out of my head. When she asked who you were, I swore her to secrecy." And now Melenis is dead. Humans have a saying about two keeping a secret if one's dead, he vaguely remembers.

Her expression softens, and she reaches up to stroke his face. "I don't _think_ I was thinking about you when Halime melded with me. And she was very professional. Gave me way more time than I needed to consent, and then completely focused on my injuries. But it was weird."

"It was weird with Melenis, too. Being part of her nervous system, her thoughts, feelings, memories, even if she kept a way better hold on them than I did." He pauses, and then says, "I wonder what it'd be like with you." With someone he cares for as more than a friend.

"Probably overwhelming," she says, but she pulls him down to headbutt him again. "If I could meld with you, I would."

"We could call Liara in here," he jokes.

"Thought you weren't into threesomes," she replies wryly.

"I'm not," he admits. "I want you all to myself." Especially after finding out about her sister's wedding reception.

She smiles, like the photo she'd sent him during their chat but better because she's right here, and she kisses him, slow and tender, as if to say, _You've got me_. He feels like he's got her all to himself, anyway, the locked door lending a greater sense of safety than their time on the Citadel this morning.

Right up until she lets go of his cowl and pushes him gently away from her face. "Actually, speaking of being part of my thoughts and feelings, I have a few things to tell you."

Garrus sits up, and braces himself. "Give me the bad news first."

"It's all okay news, I think." She smiles as she sits up too, but it's more nervous than any he's seen from her. "Today at the hospital, I updated my file to list you as one of my emergency contacts."

His next breath in is sharp, and he leans over to tap his forehead against hers. It's a show of commitment - a show for someone else, even - that he didn't expect after they made an effort not to mention their relationship at the refugee camp.

"As what?" he asks. If anything happens to her and she ends up admitted again, he needs to know whether he can call as her boyfriend.

"Squadmate," she says apologetically. "But..."

But it's a start, and he knows it. "Thank you."

"The worst part for me was always not knowing what was going on with you," she says. "So I wanted you to know if anything happens to me."

"I appreciate it," he says sincerely. "I'll have to update my files to list you."

"Which files?"

"Alliance and Hierarchy."

"Please just list me as your XO on the Alliance one," she says, and he nods, but can't help the slight draw of his mandibles. "But for the Hierarchy... You can list me as whatever feels appropriate, just - tell me, so I know what to say if I call."

It's probably because the Alliance doesn't have access to Hierarchy personnel files, but _still_. "You sure?"

This time, she doesn't hesitate before nodding.

"My brave girl," he says, and kisses her nose.

"It's not something I should _have_ to be brave about," she says, with a frown he knows is directed at herself and not him.

"It's a big step," he says. And she's letting him decide how big it is, which makes it a step in how much she trusts him, too.

She hums in agreement, though she doesn't look particularly convinced. A battle for another day.

"What else?"

"I, um... I cleared out a locker for you in my room. On the opposite side from the one with condoms and stuff. Just in case you wanted to keep a few things there to make it easier to stay over more often. Password's up to you."

He hates sleeping in her room. The couches are too small to cuddle overnight: Someone _always_ falls out and it's usually her, and when he falls asleep with her, waking up without her within easy reach hurts more than falling on the floor himself. The meaning behind the gesture is what counts. " _Thank you_. I'll have to clear one out in here for you. I just wish you'd told me before we left," he says, half-planning what he's going to put into that locker. "I could have bought another toothbrush on the Citadel."

"Sorry."

Well, at least it's all been good news so far. "Was that all?"

"Uh - no. One more thing. I... took a dextro allergy test in the hospital." His brow plates shoot up. "They've paused all non-urgent allergy desensitizations because of the war, but they _did_ prescribe me a daily preventative antihistamine that lasts the whole day. That means I can just take something every day instead of killing the mood every time we want to make out or have sex."

His first thought is that he should really do the same thing. His second thought: "Does that mean Chakwas knows now?" After coming back from the 800 blocks last year, he'd only said that he'd fallen, which was true _and_ the main thing he'd wanted to be checked for. She'd taken one look at his neck and rolled her eyes, but he'd like to think Chakwas has been the least privy to any hints he may have dropped and the crew gossip network.

She wobbles a hand. "I asked about that, and she does have to know about the antihistamine in case it interferes with other meds, but because it doesn't affect my fitness for duty, she can't report it. Patient confidentiality's the most important thing there."

"Good." He does not want to jeopardize her work any more than he already does. Still: "You're doing quite a bit without telling me."

"I didn't want to get your hopes up in case I wouldn't be able to take regular meds," she protests.

"Yeah, I get that," he says. "But being one of your emergency contacts, the locker?"

She shifts, pulling her legs to her chest. "You don't want it."

Garrus puts a hand on her knee, as much to stop her from trying to leave as to emphasize, "I want it, but I want this to be a conversation, not a series of announcements. When you defined partnership, it was about doing everything together. You're doing these things on your own."

"It doesn't take two people to empty a locker -"

"I would have liked to know you were thinking about it," he clarifies. "I'm waiting on you for go-aheads on a lot of things, and I understand why, but I want to know where your head is."

Ashley's mouth twists, but she nods. "You're right. I'm sorry."

"I forgive you," he says, patting her knee. "We're still figuring this out."

"Yeah. Okay." She pauses, then asks, "What are some of the things you're waiting on me for?"

He pauses. "I don't want you to give me a go-ahead because I'm thinking about it and you feel pressured."

Her chin juts out stubbornly. "I'm a Williams, Garrus. I do things when _I'm_ ready."

"Yeah, you do." Which is why he has to start small. "Well. Since you were ready to clear out a locker for me, I'd like to clear one for you. You sleep over more often than I do - if we can figure out how to make it work with people in the mess, it'll be easier if you can freshen up in here instead of having to duck back to your room."

She was visibly considering this as he spoke, and when he's finished, she nods, placing her hand over his. "I'd like that. I _do_ want to stay over more often; I'm ready for that now. If we can make it work."

He turns his hand to take hers, wondering how to ask this, but in combination with everything she's done for him today, he has to. "So... we're moving faster now?"

Ashley squeezes his hand. "I wanted time to get things right, and - we've learned so much about each other, we've had hard conversations and made it through, and my sister liked you. We've made _really_ good use of our time."

His mandibles splay. "I'm glad," he's careful to say instead of 'finally'.

"Good," she says. She traces her thumb over his talon before saying, "I've been thinking about what you said the other night: The bit about always being here for me. Did you mean that?"

Imagining an always with her probably comes under her 'too fast' heading. "I don't mean any pressure by saying this," he says at last. "I don't expect you to feel the same way."

Her gaze remains steady on his. "Okay."

Hearing this, then, is her decision. He nods. "I meant it. I want 'always' with you. I have for a while. And I'm not trying to start marriage talk: The only thing I want to change about how we are now is that I want to be able to say this out loud."

Ashley absorbs this, looks at their joined hands, then looks back up at him and says, "I want 'always' too, but I see 'always' as a very short time."

Garrus breathes, and reminds himself of everything she's done for him in the last two days. Family introductions, giving up space, changing your hospital contacts, and starting new medications without being asked to are not what you do for someone you're planning to break up with. Also, she hasn't let go of his hand. "What do you mean?"

"I'm just trying to be realistic," she says in a rush. "I'm not supposed to tell you this, this is Spectre and embassy intel, but First Irune says the Citadel races only have enough money to back the war effort for another year. And you've seen the Reapers; do you really think we stand a chance?"

"Not with _that_ attitude," is the first thing to pop into his head, mostly because he's _stunned_. Neither of them have ever been optimists, but it's only made them more determined to get the job done.

"Never mind our attitudes," she says, shaking her head. "Sovereign took part of the Third and Fifth Fleets to kill, you said one on Tuchanka only got taken out by a giant thresher maw, and there's more and more every day."

It's not like he hasn't had this thought before. He saw the Reapers set his hometown ablaze. "Ash -"

"This isn't about you," she cuts in, looking like that's only falling into place for her now. "And it's not about us, since we're both so stubborn about making this work. This is about me and the war."

He pauses, and then nods. "Okay," he concedes. "But it's still _affecting_ us, because it's making you uncomfortable with how I feel about you, which probably would have been fine in peacetime. And besides, we're a team. We face things better together. So will you _please_ let me in?"

She stares at him. He knew before she said it that she doesn't like asking for help; her binge drinking in Chora's Den had been evidence enough. So this time, he's offering it, looking right back at her until something in her eyes loses that guarded look she's gotten talking about the war.

"Okay," she echoes at last.

As a reward, he lifts her hand and kisses her knuckles, earning a small smile. "So," he says, stroking her thumb with his end talon. "Do you think we're not going to make it?"

"I think _I'm_ not going to make it," she says, sounding far too convinced of this for a word as unsure as 'think'. "I haven't even thought about you yet."

A small and inappropriate part of him is relieved that she's not breaking up with him, but mostly, he could kick himself for not realizing this morning in the park that she wasn't joking about expecting something to kill her before she found a civilian love. Her tone had been so breezy.

"You've survived so much," he says. "Eden Prime, Virmire, Horizon, the coup..."

"Which means my luck has to run out," she says. "Look, ever since Eden Prime, I haven't expected I'd make it through this. At some points I've thought we could win, but I never thought I'd survive. I'm firing spitballs at these massive things; I know the odds. And I was okay with it. I knew I wouldn't go down without a fight." With her free hand, she reaches up and touches his face, caressing his scars and markings; he leans into her touch, but he's careful to focus his attention on her words. "And then you start talking about 'always' without even thinking about it and how you're going to take me to Palaven after we win. It's... kind of scary."

She's scared again. He feels like he shouldn't be surprised. "How is it scary?"

"You're seeing a future for us - you're including me in your future - and it's a future I don't think we'll have. And I'd really like that future." She bumps her forehead against his, and says, "I'm not scared of _dying_ , Garrus. I _accept_ that. I'm scared of not getting that future."

This is her signature, he realizes, his detective brain abruptly recognizing the pattern in her case file. She was scared of never being happy again because she wouldn't see him again or he wouldn't love her any more by the time they caught up, and now she's scared of never having a future with him. They're completely valid and understandable fears, fears that to some extent he shares, but unlike him, she lets them come between them. 

He traces his end talon along her jawline, searching her eyes, and says, "I'm scared too, Ash."

"What?"

"You know me: I like to expect the worst so I'll be pleasantly surprised if the world doesn't end," he says. "But I don't accept it. I make that surprise my reason for fighting. I fight for our future - I fight to make sure you're in my future."

"How do you do it?" There's an urgency to her tone echoed in her eyes. "How do you keep going with the worst case scenario hanging over your head?"

"I let it hang there, and I keep my mind on the fight. On how I'm going to stop the worst from happening, on how we're all fighting it. And I have faith," he realizes. "Faith with belief _and_ evidence. I believe in Shepard because we've pulled off the impossible before. I believe in you because you've pulled through everything before and it only made you stronger. I believe in _us_ because we've always found each other again. We found each other in a _war_ ; we can find each other at the end of it."

"I want that faith," she says, and he believes her. "I have faith in your abilities, in us making our relationship work, but the war feels so much bigger than this."

"Yeah, it does. But I've felt better about our chances in the war since finding out you were okay, and you'd taken Spectre status, and especially since you came back."

She chuckles. "Look at you, turning into an optimist."

His mandibles spread. "No, I'm just dreaming, and this time I can work for it."

Ashley considers, and then scoots closer to him, utterly focused. "I'm gonna work with you. For a future together, for our 'always'. I'm not going to let my fears about the war get in the way of our relationship. I'm gonna face my fear - and I'm gonna face the Reapers - with you by my side."

"Sounds like our poem," he says, and as she cracks a smile, he adds, "It's not just the ballad. You really are the bravest person I know."

Confused, she shakes her head. "I just told you I think I'm going to die -"

"But you're still fighting," he says. "I've seen soldiers stop fighting when they thought they didn't have a chance, but you, you escorted civilians to safety just two days ago, and I know you did some remote work last night. You're scared every day that being with me will end your career, but you're opening up, getting prescription medication, and updating your files."

"Ah. I see where you're going here."

He hadn't been going anywhere, but he'll take a potential win. "Tell me."

"I fight even though I think I'm going to die because other people's lives are worth it," she says, and for a second he's reminded of Gunnery Chief Williams, disheveled by the Mako. "I'm with you even though it scares me because _you're_ worth it. You want me to not dwell on not getting... our future because that won't help us get it, and _we're_ worth that effort."

 _Our future_ , she'd said, even if it had clearly taken her great effort to do so. He smiles, as much at hearing those words from her tongue as it is to encourage this line of thinking. "And because _you're_ worth it," he reminds her. "You deserve more than a few stolen hours. You deserve happiness." She deserves happiness for her entire life, and if she'll have him, he wants to be part of it.

Ashley contemplates, then takes his hands to put on her waist. She tips him over so they're lying down, her head tucked beneath his chin. He's about to call her out on trying to shut down the conversation when she presses closer and says, "I deserve a peacetime trip to Palaven with my boyfriend."

Her saying this aloud makes it more real for him too, especially now that she's playing with the idea of this trip instead of focusing on what she sees as a low likelihood of getting it. It's progress. He pats her head in approval before starting to stroke her hair. "It's about time you get to go somewhere for fun."

"What's fun on Palaven?"

They've talked about his homeworld before, but only in the contexts of either his life there or the war, not the planet and civilization how they were before the Reapers. The Palaven he wants her to see is one he hasn't seen in months and may never see again even if they win the war; describing it makes his heart ache with homesickness he hasn't had since his first month in the military. He tries to paint her pictures with his words, not wanting to shift her to find photos on the extranet (nor to sift through photos of the war which will no doubt flood any searches), and having her here in his arms, more solid in their relationship, helps ease the pain.

She ends up shifting anyway when there's a faint knock on the door followed by her omni-tool lighting up. Within two seconds of reading it, she starts laughing.

"What?"

As her laughter pitches into giggles, she moves her messenger window around for him to see a text from Shepard: `Are you two decent in there or should I come back later?`

"I can't believe this is our reputation with her," he grumbles goodnaturedly.

"Right from the start," she says, still grinning. "EDI, let Shepard in, please."

While the doors unlock, Ashley disentangles herself from him, and by the time Shepard gets down the length of the Thanix to them, Ashley's standing ready at attention, while he remains seated on the bed, quietly astonished by how professional she manages to look in a hoodie with just a change of posture.

"At ease, Commander," says Shepard, and Ashley steps out comfortably. She also gives a nod to Garrus. "I'd meant to tell my XO first, but you'll want to hear this too."

Wanting to tell her XO as opposed to 'Ash' means this is business. He sits up straighter. "What's going on?"

"Hackett says the quarians are ready to talk," Shepard says. "We're heading out to the Migrant Fleet."

"'Out'?" Sure, the Fleet had been in the Valhallan Threshold when they took Tali home for trial last year, and ANN mentioned they refuelled at Illium, but they could be anywhere by now.

"They're on the Far Rim."

" _Shit_ ," Ashley breathes, unwittingly voicing his thoughts as well. Even knowing the geth who worked with the Reapers were only a small minority, even having watched Heretic Station explode his kneejerk reaction is that the Threshold is too close to the Perseus Veil for his liking. "What the hell are they doing out there at a time like this?"

Shepard shrugs, her face more determined than her gesture. "That's what I plan to find out."

"Is Tali there?" he asks.

"I don't know," Shepard says. "I haven't heard from her since." She doesn't need to specify that it's since Tali left the _Normandy_. "But that's why I thought you'd want to know too."

"Thank you."

"We don't know what the quarians will want in return for any aid, or if they're even in a position to help," she adds, looking more at Ashley now. "Be ready for anything, and get the squad ready too."

"Aye aye, ma'am."

"We should be there in a few days - I'll announce it to the rest of the crew in the mess in five." Shepard glances between them and the clearly crumpled sheets, and looks predictably awkward. "As you were."

Ashley salutes as she leaves. When the doors close again, he reaches out to tug her back towards the bed, but she uses his hand to pull him to his feet, dragging him down the walkway.

"She said 'as you were'," he protests half-heartedly. "We are authorized to cuddle for the next four minutes." The last minute is for getting to the mess.

"Belay that, Officer," she says, and even though she's only adjusted her word choice to something more Commander than Ash, not her tone, his spine straightens automatically. "She also said to get the squad ready for anything: I want you planning how you're going to optimize the cannons."

She could have stopped at 'I want you', but still: "I love it when you pull rank on me." She'd guessed it was the orders he got off on - it's more the authority. Besides, she _deserves_ that rank, and he likes finally seeing her in a position to use her abilities.

With a laugh, she leans out over the top of the steps while he's still at the bottom so she can kiss him without having to tiptoe or pull him down to her level, but she doesn't linger.

"What do you think we're walking into, Commander?" he asks, to continue the theme. "An ANN column I read said everyone's being recalled from their pilgrimages."

"Spectre intel says they've been upgrading their ships for combat, possibly for the geth," she says. "Of all the stupid times for it."

" _Huh_ ," is perhaps the understatement of the war. It's such a stupid time for it that the very idea had never occurred to him.

"Yeah." She pauses by the door, expression going a little wistful. "I hope we can see Tali."

Garrus blinks, and then realizes: "You haven't seen her since she left after the SR-1 went down, have you?"

She shakes her head. "We used to write. But..."

But Ashley is not good at keeping in touch with anyone outside the Alliance and her family, and even he hasn't heard from Tali since they all dispersed last year. No wonder she was always so interested in his Tali stories.

"She said she was going back to the Fleet last year, after the Collector Base and, uh, the Bahak system," he says. "I don't think she'd abandon them at a time like this."

"Yeah, but she could be off on some special mission," she points out. "That was the last thing I heard from her, and that was way before _we_ found each other."

"Well, there's no telling until we get there," he says. "But we'll be ready either way."

Hopefully taking the intended subtext, she nods. "I love you. Thanks for helping me figure things out."

"I love you too - you're always helping me figure _my_ things out," he says, brushing her hair back from her face so he can kiss her forehead. As the intercomm switches on, he adds, "Lead the way, Commander."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're wishing Garrus had taken Ashley to his second favorite spot on the Citadel, [I have a fic rec for you](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8501255/1/Ulysses).
> 
> I've always loved the contrast on Earth of Garrus planning for both retirement and Heaven while Ashley's still asking Shepard for reassurance that they can do this (even if she's romancing a dudeshep and has already told him that yes, they're going to get it done and go home).
> 
> I forgot to mark this fic completed when I initially uploaded these last two chapters - this is it for _Operational Security_ , as the Rannoch arc will be another fic. :)


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